Syrian rebels began planning the military assault that toppled the Assad regime a year ago, in a highly disciplined operation in which a new drone unit was deployed and where there was close coordination between opposition groups around the country, the top military commander of the main rebel group has revealed.

In his first interview with foreign media since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s 54-year-rule, Abu Hassan al-Hamwi, the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) military wing, spoke about how his group, which was based in the country’s north-west, communicated with rebels in the south to create a unified war room with the goal of ultimately surrounding Damascus from both directions.

He said that though the planning for the operation to oust Assad, dubbed “deterring aggression”, had started a year ago, the group had been preparing for years.

Since 2019, HTS has been developing a military doctrine that it used to turn fighters coming from disparate, disorganised opposition and jihadist groups into a disciplined fighting force.

“After the last campaign [August 2019], during which we lost significant territory, all revolutionary factions realised the critical danger – the fundamental problem was the absence of unified leadership and control over battle,” al-Hamwi, 40, who has overseen the military wing for five years, said during the interview in Jableh, a former regime stronghold.

The Syrian regime launched an operation against opposition forces in north-west Syria in 2019, successfully pushing back the loosely linked factions into Idlib province. After a final battle after which Turkey negotiated a ceasefire on behalf of opposition forces in spring 2020, rebels were confined to a small pocket of land in north-west Syria – where they would remain in a stalemate with regime forces until this month.

If it hoped to defeat the regime, HTS realised that it needed to instil order to the hodgepodge alliance of opposition factions that had been pushed into Idlib. It offered other groups to merge under its auspices, and when they refused, brought them to heel. It fought against groups such as the al-Qaida affiliate Hurras al-Din, which rejected HTS’s more pragmatic Islamist approach. Soon, HTS became the dominant power in north-west Syria.

With the political command slowly unifying, al-Hamwi set to work on training the group’s fighters and to develop a comprehensive military doctrine.

Al-Hamwi said: “We studied the enemy thoroughly, analysing their tactics, both day and night, and used these insights to develop our own forces.”

The group, which was made up of insurgents, slowly became a disciplined fighting force. Military branches, units and security forces were created.

HTS also began to produce its own weaponry, vehicles and ammunition. Outgunned by the Assad regime, which had an airforce and the backing of Russia and Iran, the group knew that it needed to get creative to make the most out of limited resources.

A drone unit was created, bringing together engineers, mechanics and chemists. “We unified their knowledge and set clear objectives: we needed reconnaissance drones, attack drones and suicide drones, with a focus on range and endurance,” al-Hamwi said, adding that drone production started in 2019.

The latest iteration of HTS drones was a new model of suicide drone, named the “Shahin” drone by al-Hamwi himself, Arabic for falcon, “symbolising their precision and power”. The Shahin drone was deployed for the first time against regime forces this month, with devastating effectiveness. Artillery military vehicles were disabled by the cheap but effective aircraft.

The group sent out messages to rebels in the south a year ago and began to advise them on how to create a unified war room. Southern Syria had been under regime control since 2018, and despite on-and-off fighting, rebel groups were forced underground. Much of the southern opposition’s military leadership was in exile in Jordan, where they maintained contact with their respective groups.

With HTS’s help, an operations room was founded, bringing together the commanders of around 25 rebel groups in the south, who would each coordinate their fighters’ movements with one another and with HTS in the north. The goal was for HTS and its allies to approach from the north and the southern operation room from the south, both meeting in the capital city.

In late November, the group decided the time was right.

The group first and foremost wanted to stop the trend of regional powers, led by countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, from normalising relations with the Assad regime after years of diplomatic isolation. It also wanted to stop intensifying aerial attacks on northwest Syria and its residents. Finally, HTS saw that Assad’s international allies were preoccupied, creating a strategic opening.

Russia, which provided the majority of aerial support, was bogged down in Ukraine. Iran and Hezbollah, whose fighters were Assad’s fiercest ground troops, were reeling from their fight with Israel.

HTS launched the operation, entering Aleppo on 29 November. Hezbollah fighters attempted to defend the city, but soon retreated. The rapid fall of the city, the second largest in Syria that took the Assad regime four years to wrest from rebel control in 2016, astonished the group.

“We had a conviction, supported by historical precedent, that ‘Damascus cannot fall until Aleppo falls.’ The strength of the Syrian revolution was concentrated in the north, and we believed that once Aleppo was liberated, we could move southward toward Damascus,” al-Hamwi said.

After the fall of Aleppo, the rebel advance in the north was seemingly unstoppable. Four days later, the opposition took Hama, On 7 December, rebels started their offensive on Homs. They took the city within hours.

Rebels in the south were supposed to wait until Homs fell to start their own rebellion in the south, according to Abu Hamzeh, a leader of the Operations Room to Liberate Damascus, but out of excitement, they started earlier. Rebels quickly pushed the Syrian army out of Daraa and reached Damascus before HTS did.

On 8 December, Bashar al-Assad fled the country.

Al-Hamwi, originally an agricultural engineer who graduated from Damascus university and was displaced by the Assad regime along with his family to Idlib, said he would transition into a role with the new civilian government.

The prospect of building a new country is no easy task – which al-Hamwi acknowledged. There are fears from religious minorities that the Islamist group might impose its own dogma.

“We affirm that minorities in Syria are part of the nation and have the right to practice their rituals, education, and services like every other Syrian citizen. The regime planted division, and we are trying, as much as possible, to bridge these divides,” al-Hamwi said.

The dramatic collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime has thrown light into the dark corners of his rule, including the industrial-scale export of the banned drug captagon.

Victorious Islamist-led fighters have seized military bases and distribution hubs for the amphetamine-type stimulant, which has flooded the hidden market across the Middle East.

Led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, the rebels say they found a vast haul of drugs and vowed to destroy them.

HTS fighters allowed AFP journalists into a warehouse at a quarry on the outskirts of Damascus, where captagon pills were concealed inside electrical components for export.

A black-masked fighter, Abu Malek al-Shami, A black-masked fighter Abu Malek al-Shami claimed the factory was linked to Maher al-Assad and Amer Khiti.

Maher al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s brother, was a military commander and is now presumed on the run. He is widely accused of being the power behind the lucrative captagon trade.

Syrian politician Khiti was placed under sanction in 2023 by the British government, which said he “controls multiple businesses in Syria which facilitate the production and smuggling of drugs”.

In a cavernous garage beneath the warehouse and loading bays, thousands of dusty beige captagon pills were packed into the copper coils of brand new household voltage stabilisers.

“We found a large number of devices that were stuffed with packages of captagon pills meant to be smuggled out of the country. It’s a huge quantity. It’s impossible to tell,” Shami said.

Above, in the warehouse, crates of cardboard boxes stood ready to allow the traffickers to disguise their cargo as pallet-loads of standard goods, alongside sacks and sacks of caustic soda. Caustic soda, or sodium hydroxide, is a key ingredient in the production of methamphetamine, another stimulant.

Assad fell at the weekend to a lightning HTS offensive, but the revenue from selling captagon propped up Assad’s government throughout Syria’s 13 years of civil war.

Captagon turned Syria into the world’s largest narco state. It became by far Syria’s biggest export, dwarfing all its legal exports put together, according to estimates drawn from official data by AFP during a 2022 investigation.

Experts – like the author of a July report from the Carnegie Middle East Center – also believe that Assad used the threat of drug-fuelled unrest to put pressure on Arab governments.

Captagon fuelled an epidemic of drug abuse in wealthy Gulf states, threatening social peace wrote Carnegie scholar Hesham Alghannam.

Assad, he wrote, “leveraged captagon trafficking as a means of exerting pressure on the Gulf states, notably Saudi Arabia, to reintegrate Syria into the Arab world”, which it did in 2023 when it rejoined the Arab League bloc.

The caustic soda at the warehouse, in the Damascus suburbs, was supplied from Saudi Arabia, according to labelling on the sacks.

The warehouse haul was massive, but smaller and still impressive stashes of captagon have also turned up in military facilities associated with units under Maher Assad’s command. Journalists from AFP this week found a bonfire of captagon pills on the grounds of the Mazzeh airbase, now in the hands of HTS fighters who descended on the capital Damascus from the north.

Behind the smouldering heap, in a ransacked air force building, more captagon lay alongside other illicit exports, including off-brand Viagra impotence remedies and poorly forged $100 bills.

“As we entered the area we found a huge quantity of captagon. So we destroyed it and burned it. It’s a huge amount, brother,” said an HTS fighter using the nom de guerre “Khattab”.

“We destroyed and burned it because it’s harmful to people. It harms nature and people and humans.”

Khattab also stressed that HTS, which has formed a transitional government to replace the collapsed administration, does not want to harm its neighbours by exporting the drug – a trade worth billions of dollars.

François Bayrou, a veteran centrist and ally of president Emmanuel Macron, has been appointed French prime minister, after last week’s historic vote of no-confidence ended the beleaguered and short-lived minority coalition of the rightwing Michel Barnier.

Bayrou, 73, is the leader of the centrist MoDem party and a political heavyweight from south-western France who calls himself a “man of the countryside”. A former education minister, and mayor of the south-western town of Pau, he has been an ally and close confidente to Emmanuel Macron since he swept to power in 2017.

Bayrou is the fourth French prime minister this year as France has struggled with a growing political crisis in a divided parliament. Barnier’s government was ousted last week after only three months in office, and Macron wants to avoid a new government facing the same fate.

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

Those divisions remain and the first task of the new prime minister is to appoint a government that can work with parliament to pass a full budget for 2025.

Thomas Cazeneuve, a centrist MP from Macron’s party, had described Bayrou as an experienced politician who had “the art of compromise”. Gabriel Attal, the former prime minister who currently heads Macron’s party in parliament, said of Bayrou: “At such a difficult moment for France, I know he has the qualities to defend the national interest and built the crucial stability French people want.”

Jordan Bardella, the president of Marine Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigration National Rally party, said his party would not immediately back a no-confidence vote in the new government. But he said: “This new prime minister must understand that he has no majority in parliament”. Bardella said his party still had “red lines” on the budget and the new prime minister must talk to all political groups. “The ball is in François Bayrou’s court,” he said.

Bayrou, a political veteran, had raised hackles on both the left – who say he will continue Macron’s policies – and on the right, where he is personally disliked by the influential former president Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he ran against in the 2007 presidential race.

Politicians on the left had earlier criticised the choice of Bayrou, saying his appointment would mean “continuity” for Macron and did not respect the snap election result in which the left alliance won the most number of votes even if it fell short of a majority.

Manon Aubry, of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s leftwing La France Insoumise (LFI), told Europe 1 her party’s view of Bayou: “He is the very embodiment of Macronism. How is it that when Emmanuel Macron loses an election he wants, at any price, to impose the colour and continuity of his own politics? … That does not work”.

Mathilde Panot, who heads the LFI parliamentary group, said she would call for a no-confidence vote.

The Socialist Boris Vallaud had said that if Macron appointed someone from his own centrist grouping “it risked worsening the political and institutional crisis” that the president had created.

Russia launched its latest massive aerial attack against Ukraine on Friday morning, using cruise missiles to target energy infrastructure across the country, particularly in the western border regions.

Dozens of drones were also used in the attack, which comes as both Moscow and Kyiv manoeuvre ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January. Later on Friday, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov praised Trump, saying his criticism of Ukrainian strikes inside Russia “impresses us”.

The alignment on the strikes between Trump and the Kremlin will cause alarm in Ukraine, where there is hope that Trump may prove surprisingly amenable to continuing US military aid to the country but also fear that his history of pro-Russian rhetoric could see Kyiv forced to sign an unfavourable deal.

Russia has been systematically targeting Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure in recent months, in a bid to sow chaos in the country ahead of winter, with temperatures due to drop well below zero in most of Ukraine over the coming days. Energy minister Herman Halushchenko said energy workers were doing everything possible to “minimise negative consequences” for the energy system.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed on Friday morning that Russia had used 93 missiles and over 200 drones in the attack. He said Ukrainian forces had managed to shoot down 81 of the missiles, including 11 which had been successfully targeted by F-16 planes. Ukraine’s air force said the Russian attack included hypersonic Kinzhal missiles launched from the air.

Svitlana Onishchuk, head of the western Ivano-Frankivsk region, said the area had suffered “the biggest attack since the beginning of the full-scale war”, from cruise missiles and drones.

“As Ukrainians wake to the coldest day of the winter so far, the enemy tries to break our spirit with this cynical terrorist attack,” said Maxim Timchenko, CEO of the private energy company DTEK. “Right now, multiple DTEK teams are urgently assessing damage to our power stations and deploying all possible resources to restoring power for the people of Ukraine.”

The Kremlin claimed the latest strikes were in retaliation for a Ukrainian attack on an airbase in southern Russia last week using US-provided long-range missiles. The Biden administration last month lifted long-standing restrictions on using missiles for hitting targets inside Russia.

Trump used an interview with Time magazine this week to criticise the decision. “It’s crazy what’s taking place. It’s crazy. I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse,” said Trump.

“The statement fully aligns with our position, with our view on the reasons for escalation,” Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday. “That impresses us. It is obvious that Trump understands exactly what is escalating the situation.”

Russia’s attacks on energy infrastructure have resulted in repeated emergency shutdowns and scheduled power cuts, as the battered grid struggles to cope with demand. Around half of the country’s generating capacity has been destroyed over nearly three years of war.

Andrian Prokip, a Kyiv-based energy expert with the Kennan Institute in Washington DC, told the Guardian earlier this week that he expected the attacks to continue ahead of Trump’s return. “I have a feeling that they would like to pressure the Ukrainian power system as much as they can before Trump’s inauguration. The Russians would like Trump to believe that Ukraine is already destroyed,” said Prokip.

Zelenskyy, in response to Friday’s attack, said: “This is Putin’s ‘peace plan’ – destroy everything. This is how he wants negotiations, by terrorising millions of people.”

Trump has promised to bring Russia and Ukraine to the table and end the war, but many observers of the conflict say there is little sign Russia wants to negotiate, except on terms that would be unacceptable to Ukraine.

On 21 November, Russia used an intermediate range hypersonic missile, which Putin has dubbed the Oreshnik, for the first time, striking an industrial plant in the city of Dnipro. Putin has used the missile, which has nuclear capabilities, as a way of raising the stakes and threatening the West, and has said it could be used again, including against “decision-making centres” in the country.

US officials warned on Wednesday that another Oreshnik strike on Ukraine could be imminent, though there was no sign the weapon was used in Friday’s attack.

The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, has said that Vladimir Putin wants to “wipe Ukraine off the map” and could come after other parts of Europe next, as he urged Europeans to press their governments to increase defence spending.

“It is time to shift to a wartime mindset,” Rutte told security experts and analysts at the Carnegie Europe thinktank in Brussels.

He said people should gird themselves for the prospect that Russia might try to use “swarms of drones” in Europe as it has to deadly effect in Ukraine.

Putin “is trying to crush our freedom and way of life”, Rutte said. The former Dutch prime minister listed Russia’s attacks on Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, and the all-out invasion of the country launched almost three years ago.

“How many more wake-up calls do we need? We should be profoundly concerned. I know I am,” he said. “Russia is preparing for long-term confrontation. With Ukraine, and with us.”

Rutte’s inaugural speech amid reports that Nato members are considering increasing defence spending to 3% of every member’s national budget – it is currently 2%.

Such a steep rise might help to placate the incoming US president, Donald Trump, who has consistently criticised European countries for relying too heavily on US cash to fund the alliance.

The speech on Thursday came just over two months after Rutte took office as Nato’s top civilian official. He has since toured the capitals of the 32 allies, including a visit to the US to meet with P Trump.

The UK prime minister has said he wants to increase Britain’s defence spending to 2.5% of GDP.

Nato has been a staunch backer of Ukraine and has helped most of its members funnel weapons, ammunition and other support into the country. But Trump’s return, and pledge to end the war quickly, has fuelled concern that an unfavourable truce might be forced on Kyiv.

Asked by the Associated Press how damaging a quick and shoddy peace agreement might be, Rutte said that “a bad deal means Putin coming out on top, and that will have worldwide ramifications, not only on Europe and Ukraine”. He insisted that Ukraine must be involved in any peace talks.

Trump routinely complains that US allies in Nato are not spending enough on defence. Rutte said Russia’s military spending was likely to amount to 7-8% of its GDP next year – far more than any Nato ally – while its defence industry churns out tanks, armoured vehicles and ammunition.

Putin also has the support of China, Iran and North Korea.

Rutte noted that defence spending has risen sharply in Europe, with 23 allies expected to reach Nato target of putting 2% of GDP into their military budgets. But he added: “I can tell you, we are going to need a lot more than 2%.”

Rutte listed a series of recent “hostile actions” by Russia against Nato allies, including cyber-attacks, assassinations, an explosion at a Czech ammunition depot, the jamming of radars in the Baltic region to disrupt air traffic, and the “weaponisation” of migrants to destabilise Europe.

“These attacks are not just isolated incidents. They are the result of a coordinated campaign to destabilise our societies and discourage us from supporting Ukraine,” he said. “They circumvent our deterrence and bring the front line to our front doors.”

Beyond increased defence spending in Europe, Rutte noted that Nato now has tens of thousands of troops on high readiness should they be needed to defend allied territory.

“With all this, our deterrence is good – for now. But it’s tomorrow I’m worried about,” he said, and warned that “we are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years. Danger is moving towards us at full speed.”

“What is happening in Ukraine could happen here too, and regardless of the outcome of this war, we will not be safe in the future unless we are prepared to deal with danger,” Rutte added.

He appealed to governments to provide the defence industry with “the big orders and long-term contracts they need to rapidly produce more and better capabilities”. He urged the industry to boost production for defences against drones and other new war tactics.

He added that “freedom does not come for free” to the estimated 1 billion people living in the Euro-Atlantic area.

“If we don’t spend more together now to prevent war, we will pay a much, much, much higher price later to fight it. Not billions, but trillions of euros. That’s if we come out on top, and that’s if we win,” he said.

• Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to “wipe Ukraine off the map” and could come after other parts of Europe next. Rutte told the Carnegie Europe thinktank in Brussels it is “time to shift to a wartime mindset” and that people should gird themselves for the prospect that Russia might try to use “swarms of drones” in Europe as it has to deadly effect in Ukraine. The former Dutch prime minister was making his inaugural speech just over two months after he took office as Nato’s top civilian official.

• US President Joe Biden announced another package of weapons aid for Ukraine on Thursday, valued at $500m, secretary of state Antony Blinken said in a statement. White House spokesperson John Kirby said earlier the US would continue to provide additional packages for Ukraine “right up to the end of this administration.” Washington said 10 days ago it would send Ukraine $725m worth of missiles, ammunition, anti-personnel mines and other weapons. Biden’s outgoing administration is seeking to bolster Ukraine in tackling Russia’s invasion, before Biden’s term ends in January when president-elect Donald Trump takes office.

• In a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine, US president election Donald Trump offered his thoughts on global affairs, including the war in Ukraine. The president-elect has previously derided US aid to Kyiv. Pressed on whether he would abandon Ukraine in its efforts to stave off Russia’s invasion, Trump said he would use US support for Kyiv as leverage against Moscow in negotiating an end to the war. “I want to reach an agreement,” he said, “and the only way you’re going to reach an agreement is not to abandon.”

• Ukraine’s top military commander says fighting around a key eastern Ukraine city is “extremely intense” after a months-long Russian push. Analysts estimate Russian forces are now within just a few kilometres, or miles, of Pokrovsk. Ukraine’s general staff said on Thursday that Ukrainian troops had repelled nearly 40 Russian attempts to storm defences around Pokrovsk over the previous 24 hours. Ukraine’s stretched defences in Donetsk have been creaking since early this year under a fierce Russian drive. Pokrovsk is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff said in an interview broadcast late on Thursday that Kyiv was not yet ready to start talks with Russia as it lacked the weapons, security guarantees and international status that it sought. Andriy Yermak’s comments to public broadcaster Suspilne come as Zelenskyy publicly considers the possibility of a negotiated settlement to the war with Russia, launched by Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022. “Not just yet today,” Yermak told Suspilne, when asked whether Ukraine was ready to embark on talks. “We don’t have the weapons, we don’t have the status that we are talking about.”

• French President Emmanuel Macron and Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said Ukraine must have a pivotal role in any potential negotiations over Russia’s war in the country, after a meeting Thursday in Warsaw. Macron also insisted Europeans must be involved in security talks in “very close” coordination with the United States to ensure Europe’s interests are taken into account. The meeting comes after Macron held key talks with Trump and Zelenskyy on Saturday in Paris.

• Billions of Russian state funds frozen in the European Union should be used to aid Ukraine, the EU’s top diplomat has said. Kaja Kallas, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security, told the Guardian and four other European newspapers that Ukraine had a legitimate claim to compensation and that Russian assets held in the EU were “a tool to pressure Russia”. “Better to have a small bird in your hand than a big bird on the roof,” she said. “So we have the small bird in our hand [the frozen assets] and this is the tool to also pressure Russia.” Her proposal comes amid growing questions over how to fund Ukraine in the medium term and pay its colossal reconstruction bill.

Diary of a CEO host Steven Bartlett has been criticised by health experts for amplifying harmful health misinformation on his No 1-ranked podcast, potentially putting cancer patients at risk.

The Dragons’ Den star is facing questions after guests on the podcast put forward unfounded healths claims, for example that cancer can be treated by following a keto diet.

Health experts warned that the assertions could have serious consequences for people who were severely ill and discouraged listeners from following some of the advice.

On Friday, an investigation by the BBC World Service found that guests were faced with little or no challenge. Experts told the BBC that failing to question these disproven claims was dangerous because it created a distrust of conventional medicine.

In an analysis of 15 health-related podcast episodes, the broadcaster found each contained an average of 14 harmful health claims that went against extensive scientific evidence.

However, Flight Studio, the podcast production company owned by Bartlett, said guests were offered “freedom of expression” and were “thoroughly researched”.

The podcast, launched in 2017, has 7 million subscribers. Last year, its monthly views increased from 9 million to 15 million.

In the eight-month window analysed by the BBC, some guests billed as health experts shared misleading claims including anti-vaccine conspiracies, stating that Covid was an engineered weapon, that poly-cystic ovarian syndrome, autism and other disorders could be “reversed” with diet and that evidence-based medication is “toxic” for patients, downplaying the success of proven treatments.

Heidi Larson, an expert in public confidence in healthcare, told the BBC: “They [the guests] are way overstretching. It sends people away from evidence-based medicine. They stop doing things that might have some side effects, even though it could save their life.”

In an episode in October, Dr Thomas Seyfried told Bartlett that the treatment of cancer could be helped by following a keto diet, the BBC said. He compared modern cancer treatments to “medieval cures”.

In another podcast episode in July, doctor Aseem Malhotra said the “Covid vaccine was a net negative for society.”

A spokesperson for Flight Studio maintained that each guest episode was thoroughly researched prior to commission.

“DOAC offers guests freedom of expression and believes that progress, growth and learning comes from hearing a range of voices, not just those Steven and the DOAC team necessarily agree with,” they added.

They said the BBC had looked at only 15 episodes of nearly 400 published to date.

“For any reporting to focus on less than 4% of episodes with an extremely limited proportion of guests – some of whom have featured on the BBC – to create a broader, and in our opinion, partial narrative is disappointing, misleading and frankly, disingenuous,” they added.

In August, two nutrition adverts on Facebook for diet app Zoe and food replacement supplement Huel that featured endorsements by Bartlett were banned by the advertising watchdog for being “misleading”.

Bartlett praised the products in three sponsored posts shared on Facebook in February and March. However, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) claimed that the adverts were misleading as they did not make it clear that Bartlett was an investor in Zoe and a director of Huel.

Diary of a CEO host Steven Bartlett has been criticised by health experts for amplifying harmful health misinformation on his No 1-ranked podcast, potentially putting cancer patients at risk.

The Dragons’ Den star is facing questions after guests on the podcast put forward unfounded healths claims, for example that cancer can be treated by following a keto diet.

Health experts warned that the assertions could have serious consequences for people who were severely ill and discouraged listeners from following some of the advice.

On Friday, an investigation by the BBC World Service found that guests were faced with little or no challenge. Experts told the BBC that failing to question these disproven claims was dangerous because it created a distrust of conventional medicine.

In an analysis of 15 health-related podcast episodes, the broadcaster found each contained an average of 14 harmful health claims that went against extensive scientific evidence.

However, Flight Studio, the podcast production company owned by Bartlett, said guests were offered “freedom of expression” and were “thoroughly researched”.

The podcast, launched in 2017, has 7 million subscribers. Last year, its monthly views increased from 9 million to 15 million.

In the eight-month window analysed by the BBC, some guests billed as health experts shared misleading claims including anti-vaccine conspiracies, stating that Covid was an engineered weapon, that poly-cystic ovarian syndrome, autism and other disorders could be “reversed” with diet and that evidence-based medication is “toxic” for patients, downplaying the success of proven treatments.

Heidi Larson, an expert in public confidence in healthcare, told the BBC: “They [the guests] are way overstretching. It sends people away from evidence-based medicine. They stop doing things that might have some side effects, even though it could save their life.”

In an episode in October, Dr Thomas Seyfried told Bartlett that the treatment of cancer could be helped by following a keto diet, the BBC said. He compared modern cancer treatments to “medieval cures”.

In another podcast episode in July, doctor Aseem Malhotra said the “Covid vaccine was a net negative for society.”

A spokesperson for Flight Studio maintained that each guest episode was thoroughly researched prior to commission.

“DOAC offers guests freedom of expression and believes that progress, growth and learning comes from hearing a range of voices, not just those Steven and the DOAC team necessarily agree with,” they added.

They said the BBC had looked at only 15 episodes of nearly 400 published to date.

“For any reporting to focus on less than 4% of episodes with an extremely limited proportion of guests – some of whom have featured on the BBC – to create a broader, and in our opinion, partial narrative is disappointing, misleading and frankly, disingenuous,” they added.

In August, two nutrition adverts on Facebook for diet app Zoe and food replacement supplement Huel that featured endorsements by Bartlett were banned by the advertising watchdog for being “misleading”.

Bartlett praised the products in three sponsored posts shared on Facebook in February and March. However, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) claimed that the adverts were misleading as they did not make it clear that Bartlett was an investor in Zoe and a director of Huel.

Donald Trump has invited China’s hardline president, Xi Jinping, to his inauguration next month in an audacious diplomatic gambit that Beijing has reportedly indicated would be rebuffed.

The president-elect’s overture – which his staff said might also be extended to other leaders – broke with historic precedent, which holds that no foreign heads of state are expected to attend US presidential inauguration ceremonies.

It also represented a brazen statement of the unorthodox foreign policy approach Trump intends to adopt, given that China has emerged as America’s most important global adversary and that the incoming president has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 60% if the country does not act to stop the entry of fentanyl and other drugs into the US.

Trump disclosed his initiative in an interview following his symbolic opening of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday and acknowledged that it amounted to a risk.

“Some people said, ‘Wow, that’s a little risky, isn’t it?’” Trump said. “And I said, ‘Maybe it is. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens.’ But we like to take little chances.”

Talking to CNBC, he added: “We’re going to be having a lot of talks with China. We have a good relationship with China. I have a surprising relationship.

“Now, when the Covid came in, I sort of cut it off. That was a step too far. That was, as they say, a bridge too far. But we’ve been talking and discussing with President Xi, some things, and other world leaders, and I think we’re going to do very well all around.

“We’ve been badly abused from an economic standpoint … We’re not going to be abused any more.”

Karoline Leavitt, the incoming press secretary in Trump’s White House, told Fox News that the invitation was “an example of President Trump creating an open dialogue with leaders of countries that are not just our allies, but our adversaries and our competitors, too”.

Trump hosted Xi at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida during his first presidency and has often voiced admiration for his intelligence and autocratic approach despite the contentious relationship between the US and China.

Nevertheless, inviting Xi to witness his inaugural address was “shockingly cavalier … from the standpoint of American values,” Edward Frantz, a presidential historian at the University of Indianapolis, told the Associated Press.

Sources in Beijing said Xi would reject the invitation and that China’s communist regime would probably be represented at the ceremony by the country’s ambassador to Washington, CBS reported.

Attending would potentially put Xi in a subservient position to Trump, being forced to listen passively to the incoming US leader saying whatever he chose in the full glare of the global media spotlight, while lacking the ability to respond, analysts said.

It would also make him a witness to a peaceful transfer of power in a democratic setting absent under China’s system of one-party rule.

“China would be concerned with the risk of potential hostile actions by the Trump administration after Xi’s visit, which would jeopardise Xi’s authority and credibility,” Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Stimson Center, told the Wall Street Journal.

However, even a rebuffed invitation potentially puts Trump on the front foot, some analysts believe, with the initiative likely to serve as an indicator of his future foreign policy.

“This is a reminder of Trump’s fondness for foreign policy by grand gesture and his willingness to trample diplomatic codes with his unpredictable approach,” CNN noted.

“The Xi invitation also shows that Trump believes that the force of his personality alone can be a decisive factor in forging diplomatic breakthroughs.”

There was no immediate confirmation of which other foreign leaders may be invited, although there is speculation that an invitation could be extended to Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s hard-right prime minister, whom Trump repeatedly praised on the campaign trail and who has visited him at Mar-a-Lago. There was also speculation surrounding the possible attendance of Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister.

The Shard is going to have to share its title of the UK’s tallest building after planning permission was granted for a new skyscraper in the City of London.

When it is completed early next decade, 1 Undershaft will be 309.6m tall, matching the height of the Shard to the centimetre, the maximum allowed due to civil aviation rules.

However, the designers of 1 Undershaft, Eric Parry Architects, are aiming to get one up on their rival south of the River Thames by building Europe’s highest publicly-accessible viewing gallery.

The building will also offer a free-to-access public garden on the 11th floor as well as an educational space, curated by the London Museum and dubbed a “classroom in the sky”, on the uppermost floors, giving visitors the chance to learn about London.

At street level, on St Helen’s Square, a 12.5 by 7 metre public screen and temporary stage will be at times used to show productions, concerts, talks and sporting fixtures to the public.

On completion, 1 Undershaft, which is being built on the site currently occupied by insurer Aviva’s former headquarters, will provide almost 13% of the office space required in the City of London to 2040.

“As another, much-needed office development gets approved in the City of London, it speaks to the confidence that global investors have in the London real estate market and the UK economy more widely,” said Shravan Joshi, chair of the City of London Corporation’s planning and transportation committee.

Stanhope, which has worked on projects including Tate Modern, will act as development manager for 1 Undershaft on behalf of Aroland Holdings.

Aroland Holdings is a British Virgin Islands registered company whose beneficial owner is listed as Kuok Khoon Hong, the co-founder of Singapore’s Wilmar International, one of the world’s largest oil palm plantation owners.

Unidentified drones have been sighted over sensitive industry locations and the US air base at Ramstein in Germany in recent weeks, the Spiegel news magazine reported on Friday, citing a confidential report by German security authorities.

The report flagged numerous drone sightings made in the evening hours of 3 and 4 December over the air base, according to Spiegel.

A security source told Reuters the report on drone sightings over Ramstein was correct. The German defence ministry declined to comment on the report.

German intelligence chiefs have warned that the country’s support for Ukraine in its war with Russia makes it a target of possible sabotage attempts, with recent security incidents at military barracks raising alarm further.

Spiegel also reported unexplained drone sightings over locations belonging to the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall and the chemicals group BASF.

“The safety of BASF sites is our top priority,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We therefore keep an eye on suspicious activities at all times and work closely with the relevant security authorities.“

Rheinmetall did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Unidentified drones have been sighted over sensitive industry locations and the US air base at Ramstein in Germany in recent weeks, the Spiegel news magazine reported on Friday, citing a confidential report by German security authorities.

The report flagged numerous drone sightings made in the evening hours of 3 and 4 December over the air base, according to Spiegel.

A security source told Reuters the report on drone sightings over Ramstein was correct. The German defence ministry declined to comment on the report.

German intelligence chiefs have warned that the country’s support for Ukraine in its war with Russia makes it a target of possible sabotage attempts, with recent security incidents at military barracks raising alarm further.

Spiegel also reported unexplained drone sightings over locations belonging to the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall and the chemicals group BASF.

“The safety of BASF sites is our top priority,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We therefore keep an eye on suspicious activities at all times and work closely with the relevant security authorities.“

Rheinmetall did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Switzerland is seeking to ban the swastika, Hitler salute and other Nazi signs due to a rise in antisemitism, the federal government has announced.

The Federal Council said in a statement that “banning symbols linked to the Third Reich has taken on a particular urgency due to the sharp increase in antisemitic incidents”.

It has proposed an immediate ban on the use of Nazi symbols in public and the imposition of a fine of about 200 Swiss francs (£177) on anyone who breaks the law.

The Swiss penal code will be amended to punish anyone who uses a “racist, extremist, Nazi symbol or one that advocates violence in order to propagate the ideology it represents”.

Switzerland also wants to go further than banning the most well-known Nazi symbols, extending it to more cryptic signs of recognition used by supporters of Nazi ideology.

As such, use of the “18” – the first and eighth letter of the alphabet signifying Adolf Hitler’s initials – and “88” – for “Heil Hitler” – will also fall foul of the proposed law.

“The context will play a decisive role in this case,” the council said.

Exceptions are provided for educational, scientific, artistic or journalistic purposes but “within the limits of what freedom of expression allows”, it added.

Existing religious symbols that are identical or similar to Nazi symbols will not be affected.

Consultation on the proposed ban will run until 31 March next year and includes a separate future outlawing of “other extremist symbols”.

As elsewhere in Europe, the number of antisemitic incidents have surged in Switzerland in recent years, particularly after the start of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip sparked by the militants’ attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

Last year, the Intercommunity Coordination Against Antisemitism and Defamation recorded 944 antisemitic incidents in French-speaking Switzerland – 70% more than in 2022.

“This considerable increase is largely due to the Israel-Hamas conflict which has served and continues to serve as a pretext for the surge in antisemitism,” the group said in its annual report.

In German- and Italian-speaking areas of Switzerland, the increase was less marked, rising from 910 incidents in 2022 to 1,130 last year, according to the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities and the Foundation Against Racism & Antisemitism (GRA).

A Chinese businessman described as a “close confidant” of the Duke of York has lost an appeal over a decision to bar him from entering the UK on national security grounds.

The man, known only as H6, brought a case to the special immigration appeals commission (SIAC) after the then-home secretary, Suella Braverman, said he should be excluded from the UK in March 2023.

Judges were told that in a briefing for the home secretary in July 2023, officials claimed H6 had been in a position to generate relationships between prominent UK figures and senior Chinese officials “that could be leveraged for political interference purposes”.

They also said that H6 had downplayed his relationship with the Chinese state, which, combined with his relationship with Andrew, represented a threat to national security.

At a hearing in July, the specialist tribunal heard that the businessman was told by an adviser to Prince Andrew that he could act on the duke’s behalf when dealing with potential investors in China, and that H6 had been invited to Andrew’s birthday party in 2020.

A letter referencing the birthday party from the adviser, Dominic Hampshire, was discovered on H6’s devices when he was stopped at a port in November 2021.

The letter also said: “I also hope that it is clear to you where you sit with my principal and indeed his family.

“You should never underestimate the strength of that relationship … Outside of his closest internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.”

In a ruling on Thursday, Mr Justice Bourne, Judge Stephen Smith and Sir Stewart Eldon dismissed the challenge.

The judges said: “The secretary of state was entitled to conclude that the applicant represented a risk to the national security of the United Kingdom, and that she was entitled to conclude that his exclusion was justified and proportionate.”

The Home Office confirmed in July 2023 that H6 would be excluded from the UK as he was considered to have engaged in “covert and deceptive activity” on behalf of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) and that he likely posed a threat to national security.

The now-50-year-old former civil servant brought legal action for a review of the decision, arguing that it was unlawful.

The tribunal in London heard that H6 had said he avoided getting involved in politics, and had only limited links to the Chinese state.

His lawyers also argued that there was evidence that it was difficult for a Chinese national involved in business to avoid any contact with the CCP and that material related to his relationship with Andrew had to be read in the context of an adviser writing to someone who had been loyal to the duke in difficult times.

However, Home Office lawyers argued that H6 had downplayed his links to an arm of the CCP, and that his relationship with Andrew could be used for political interference.

In their 53-page ruling, the judges said that Andrew could have been made “vulnerable” to the misuse of the influence H6 had.

They said: “The applicant won a significant degree, one could say an unusual degree, of trust from a senior member of the royal family who was prepared to enter into business activities with him.

“That occurred in a context where, as the contemporaneous documents record, the duke was under considerable pressure and could be expected to value the applicant’s loyal support.

“It is obvious that the pressures on the duke could make him vulnerable to the misuse of that sort of influence.

“That does not mean that the home secretary could be expected to exclude from the UK any Chinese businessman who formed a commercial relationship with the duke or with any other member of the royal family.”

The three judges said H6 had enjoyed a private life in the UK, which had been described as the businessman’s “second home”, adding: “He has settled status, a home and extensive business interests in the United Kingdom. He was regarded as a close confidant of the duke.”

The judges continued the home secretary was “rationally entitled to decide” there was a potential to leverage the relationship, adding H6 was “not candid” about his links to the CCP.

They concluded: “In our judgment it was open to the SSHD to take a reasonably precautionary approach to the risk, and to take action rationally aimed at neutralising it so far as possible.

“Whilst excluding the applicant would not necessarily halt his activities, it would significantly hinder them.

“Cultivating relationships with prominent UK individuals would logically be much more difficult if no meetings could take place in the UK.”

Six critically endangered Mekong giant catfish — one of the largest and rarest freshwater fish in the world — have been caught and released in Cambodia, reviving hopes for the survival of the species.

The underwater giants can grow up to 3 metres long and weigh up to 300kg. They are found only in south-east Asia’s Mekong River but in the past inhabited the entire 3,044-mile (4,900km)-long river all the way from its outlet in Vietnam to its northern reaches in China’s Yunnan province.

The population has plummeted by 80% in recent decades due to rising pressures from overfishing, dams that block the migratory path the fish follow to spawn and other disruptions.

Few of the millions of people who depend on the Mekong for their livelihoods have ever seen a giant catfish. To find six of the giants within five days is unprecedented.

The first two were on the Tonle Sap River, a tributary of the Mekong not far from Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. They were given identification tags and released. On Tuesday, fishermen caught four more giant catfish including two longer than 2 metres that weighed 120kg and 131kg respectively. The captured fish were apparently migrating from their floodplain habitats near Cambodia’s Tonlé Sap Lake northward along the Mekong River, likely to spawning grounds in northern Cambodia, Laos or Thailand.

“It’s a hopeful sign that the species is not in imminent, like in the next few years, risk of extinction, which gives conservation activities time to be implemented and to continue to bend the curve away from decline and toward recovery,” said Dr. Zeb Hogan, a University of Nevada Reno research biologist who leads the US Agency for International Development-funded Wonders of the Mekong project.

Much is still unknown about the giant fish, but over the past two decades a joint conservation programme by the Wonders of the Mekong and the Cambodian Fisheries Administration has caught, tagged and released about 100 of them, gaining insights into how the catfish migrate, where they live and the health of the species.

“This information is used to establish migration corridors and protect habitats to try to help these fish survive in the future,” said Hogan.

The Mekong giant catfish is woven into the region’s cultural fabric, depicted in 3,000-year-old cave paintings, revered in folklore and considered a symbol of the river, whose fisheries feed millions and are valued at $10bn annually.

Local communities play a crucial role in conservation. Fishermen now know about the importance of reporting accidental catches of rare and endangered species to officials, enabling researchers to reach places where fish have been captured and measure and tag them before releasing them.

“Their cooperation is essential for our research and conservation efforts,” Heng Kong, the director of Cambodia’s Inland Fisheries Research and Development Institute, said in a statement.

Apart from the Mekong giant catfish, the river is also home to other large fish including the salmon carp, which was thought to be extinct until it was spotted earlier this year, and the giant sting ray.

That four of these fish were caught and tagged in a single day is likely the “big fish story of the century for the Mekong”, said Brian Eyler, the director of the Washington-based Stimson Center’s south-east Asia programme. He said that seeing them confirmed that the annual fish migration was still robust despite all the pressures facing the environment along the Mekong.

“Hopefully what happened this week will show the Mekong countries and the world that the Mekong’s mighty fish population is uniquely special and needs to be conserved,” he said.

An Indian actor has been arrested after his appearance at a film screening allegedly led to a crush of fans in which a woman died, police and local media said.

Huge crowds had gathered at a cinema in the southern city of Hyderabad this month to catch a glimpse of Allu Arjun as he arrived for the screening of his film Pushpa 2: The Rule.

The actor, 42, was arrested on suspicion of three offences – including voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means – a police officer told the AFP news service, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The officer added that seven other people had been arrested.

A video on X, shared by the broadcaster TV9, showed the actor holding a coffee mug at his home as he spoke to officers who had come to arrest him.

The victim of the 4 December crush was a woman in her 30s attending the screening with her son, who was also seriously injured.

The woman’s family later filed a complaint against Arjun, his security team and the venue management, India Today reported.

Arjun said he was “deeply heartbroken” two days after the incident.

“While respecting their need for space to grieve, I stand committed to extend every possible assistance to help them navigate through this challenging journey,” he wrote on X.

Arjun is hugely popular in southern India, and the Pushpa film franchise has been a big commercial success.

He won best actor at India’s National Film Awards for his title role in the first instalment of the series, released in 2021.