Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia should have launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier and been better prepared for the war.

In his end-of-year press conference on Thursday, Putin said, with hindsight, there should have been “systemic preparation” for the 2022 invasion, which he refers to as a “special military operation”.

Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and pro-Russian forces began a conflict in eastern Ukraine, but it was eight years later that Putin tried to seize Kyiv.

During his four-hour long appearance, Putin also talked about Syria’s deposed leader, Russia’s more aggressive nuclear doctrine as well as domestic issues, like the price of butter.

Billed as “Results of the Year with Vladimir Putin”, the event was broadcast live across the main state TV channels on Thursday.

Putin appeared in front of a large blue screen emblazoned with a map of the Russian Federation, complete with annexed parts of Ukraine.

He took questions from members of the public, foreign journalists and pensioners – but it was a highly choreographed and tightly controlled affair.

When asked by the BBC’s Russia editor Steve Rosenberg whether he felt the country was in a better state than where his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, had left it 25 years ago, Putin said Russia had regained its “sovereignty”.

“With everything that was happening to Russia before that, we were heading towards a complete, total loss of our sovereignty.”

Asked about the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, Putin insisted it was not a defeat for the Kremlin – which supported President Bashar al-Assad militarily for years – but he admitted the situation was “complicated”.

He said he had not yet spoken to ousted Syrian leader, who fled to Moscow as rebel forces closed in on Damascus earlier this month, but planned to do so soon.

He added that Russia was in talks with Syria’s new rulers to retain two strategically important military bases on the Mediterranean coast and that Moscow would consider using them for humanitarian purposes.

On US President-elect Donald Trump, Putin said the pair had not spoken in four years, but he was ready to meet him “if he wants it”.

When put to him he was in a weak position compared to Trump, who is set to take office in January, Putin quoted American writer Mark Twain: “The rumours of my death are much exaggerated,” prompting a smattering of laughs in the conference hall.

Moving on to China, Putin said Russia’s relations with its eastern neighbour had reached an all-time high and the two countries were coordinating actions on the world stage.

“In the last decade, the level and quality of our [Russia-China] relations have reached a point that has never existed throughout our entire history, ” he said.

A lengthy portion of the session was focused on the war in Ukraine, with Putin saying he was “open to compromises” to end the war – although it was unclear what such compromises could entail.

Russian forces are making progress on the frontlines “everyday”, he said, describing his troops as “heroes”.

At one point, he produced a signed flag he said was given to him by Russian marines who were “fighting for the motherland” in the Kursk region, and ushered two observers to hold it behind him for the cameras.

He also talked up Russia’s construction projects in areas it has seized from Ukraine, claiming the standard of roads in the Ukrainian region of Luhansk had greatly improved since it was seized by Russia-backed forces in 2014.

When asked by an audience member if the West had “received the message” on Russia’s change to its nuclear doctrine, which Putin pushed through in November, he said “you’ll have to ask them.”

The new nuclear doctrine allows Russia to conduct a nuclear strike on any country, if it is backed by a nuclear power.

That means if Ukraine were to launch a large attack on Russia with conventional missiles, drones or aircraft, that could meet the criteria for a nuclear response, as could an attack on Belarus or any critical threat to Russia’s sovereignty.

Putin also emphasised the capabilities of Russia’s new intermediate-range ballistic missile, Oreshnik, which was used in a strike on Ukraine in November.

In order to test its power, he suggested Russia should fire the Oreshnik towards Ukraine, and Ukrainian air defence – using US-supplied systems – should try to bring it down.

As for the name “Oreshnik”? “Honestly,” Putin said with a smirk, “No idea. No clue.”

A dominant theme throughout the event was “Russian sovereignty”, with Putin claiming that less reliance on international partners – partly a result of Western sanctions – was one of the key achievements of his invasion of Ukraine.

He said the economy was “stable”, pointing to higher growth than countries like Germany, but admitted inflation of 9.1% was “alarming”.

In fact, the economy is overheating and highly reliant on military production – sometimes termed the “military industrial complex”.

Throughout the address, Putin also answered questions on domestic issues – from telephone scammers to young people’s struggles with getting a mortgage.

What Haneul remembers most about his time in the North Korean military is the gnawing, continuous hunger. He lost 10kg in his first month of service, due to a diet of cracked corn and mouldy cabbage.

Three months into training, he says almost his entire battalion was severely malnourished and needed to be sent to a recovery centre to gain weight.

When they were later deployed as frontline guards to the border with South Korea, rice replaced corn. But by the time it reached their bowls, much had been siphoned off by rear units, and the remainder had been cut with sand.

Haneul says his unit was among the best-fed, a tactic to stop them defecting to South Korea. But it failed to prevent Haneul.

In 2012, he made a death-defying dash across the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) – the strip of land dividing the North from the South.

His experience and that of other military defectors helps shed light on the condition of thousands of North Korean troops deployed to the frontline in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Pyongyang has reportedly sent around 11,000 troops to help Russian forces reclaim part of its Kursk region taken by Ukraine in a surprise summer offensive.

Earlier this week, Seoul, Washington and Kyiv said said the soldiers had now entered the fight “in significant numbers”, and reported the first casualties, with South Korean officials estimating more than 100 had already been killed and more injured. This figure has not been confirmed.

However, defectors and other military experts have told the BBC these troops should not be underestimated.

According to South Korean intelligence, most belong to the elite Storm Corps unit, and have “high morale”, but “lack an understanding of contemporary warfare”.

Only the taller, sportier men are selected for the Storm Corps, says defector Lee Hyun Seung, who trained North Korea’s special forces in the early 2000s before defecting in 2014.

He taught them martial arts, how to throw knives and make weapons out of cutlery and other kitchen utensils.

But even though the Storm Corps’ training is more advanced than that of regular North Korean units, the soldiers are still underfed and even malnourished.

Online videos, reportedly of the troops in Russia, show younger, “frail” soldiers, Haneul says. They are a stark contrast to Pyongyang’s propaganda videos, where men are seen bursting out of iron chains and smashing blocks of ice with their bare hands.

During his entire time in the army, Haneul says he fired only three bullets in a single live-fire training session.

The closest he came to combat was when a hungry farmer stumbled into the DMZ looking for vegetables. Haneul says he ignored instructions to “shoot any intruders” and let the man go with a warning.

It is difficult to know how much has changed in the decade since Haneul defected, given the scarcity of information from North Korea. It appears that the country’s leader Kim Jong Un has directed much of his limited resources into missiles and nuclear weapons rather than his standing army.

But according to another soldier, Ryu Seonghyun, who defected in 2019, the first three years in the military are “incredibly tough”, even for the special forces. The 28-year-old, who worked as a driver in the air force for seven years, says that during his service, conditions deteriorated and rice gradually disappeared from meals.

“The soldiers are sent into the mountains for days with a small amount of rice, and are told it is part of their survival training.”

Given these troops have been trained to fight in the mountainous Korean Peninsula, the defectors question how well they will adapt to fighting on the flatlands and in the trenches of Kursk.

Crucially, the Storm Corps are not a frontline unit. “Their mission is to infiltrate enemy lines and create chaos deep within enemy territory,” Ryu says.

But, he adds, Kim Jong Un has no alternative to sending special forces, as regular soldiers spend most of their time farming, building or chopping wood.

“Kim Jong Un had to send men who could demonstrate at least a certain level of combat ability, to avoid damaging North Korea’s reputation in Russia.”

The language barrier seems to have created an additional hurdle. On Sunday, Ukraine’s defence intelligence unit said communication issues had resulted in North Korean soldiers accidentally firing on a Russian battalion, killing eight.

With these assessments, it could be easy to dismiss the troops as “cannon fodder” and a sign of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s desperation. But that would be a mistake, the defectors say. Their loyalty to the regime and fighting spirit will count for a lot.

“Most of the soldiers in the Storm Corps come from working-class or farming families, who are highly obedient to the party and will follow orders unquestionably,” says Haneul, whose father and cousin were in the special forces.

Intense, ideological “brainwashing” sessions, held every morning, will further ensure they are mentally ready, Lee adds. He believes the North Korean troops “will become accustomed to the battlefield, learn how to fight the enemy, and find ways to survive”.

Although the soldiers will not have been given a choice over whether to be deployed, Ryu thinks many will have wanted to go. The ambitious will see it as an opportunity to advance their careers, he says.

And given how tough it is to serve in North Korea, some will have relished the chance to experience life abroad for the first time.

“I think they’ll be more willing to fight than Russian troops,” he adds, admitting that in their situation, he too would have wanted to be sent.

Chun In-bum, a former commander of South Korea’s special forces, agrees with the defectors’ appraisals. “Just because they lack food and training, does not mean they are incapable. They will acclimatise quickly. We should not underestimate them.”

While 11,000 troops are unlikely to turn the tide of such an attritional war – it is estimated Russia is suffering more than a thousand casualties a day – experts and officials believe this could be just the first tranche, with Pyongyang potentially able to send up to 60,000 or even 100,000 if they are rotated.

In these numbers, Mr Chun believes they could end up being effective.

Also, Kim Jong Un will be able to shoulder big losses without affecting the stability of his regime, the former soldiers say.

“Those who have been sent will be men without influence or connections – to put it bluntly, those who can be sacrificed without issue,” Haneul says.

He remembers being shocked to learn there were no children of high-ranking parents in his frontline unit: “That’s when I realised we were expendable.”

He does not expect much resistance from the families of the deceased, whose sons, he says, will be honoured as heroes.

“There are countless parents who have lost a child after sending them to the military,” he adds, recalling his second cousin who died. His aunt received a certificate, praising her son for his heroic contribution.

The loyalty of the soldiers and their families could blunt Ukrainian and South Korean hopes that many will simply defect once they enter the fight. Kyiv and Seoul have discussed conducting psychological operations along the frontline to encourage the men to surrender.

But it seems they do not have access to mobile phones. According to Ukrainian intelligence, even Russian soldiers’ phones are seized before they encounter North Korean troops.

So, possible infiltration strategies include broadcasting messages through loudspeakers or using drones to drop leaflets.

Both Ryu and Haneul decided to defect after reading anti-regime propaganda sent across the border from South Korea. But they are doubtful this would work so far from home.

They say it takes a long time to build up the desire and courage to defect.

Furthermore, Haneul suspects the officers will have been ordered to shoot anyone who attempts to flee. He remembers his comrades opening fire as he made his daring sprint across the DMZ.

“Twelve bullets flew just a metre over my head,” he says.

Even capturing the North Korean troops may prove challenging for Ukraine.

In the North, being a prisoner of war is considered extremely shameful and worse than death. Instead, soldiers are taught to take their own lives, by shooting themselves or detonating a grenade.

Ryu recalls a famous military song entitled Save the Last Bullet. “They tell you to save two bullets, one to shoot the enemy and one to shoot yourself.”

Nevertheless, the former special forces trainer Lee is determined to help. He has offered to go to the frontline to communicate directly with the soldiers.

“It’s unlikely they will defect in large numbers, but we have to try. Hearing familiar voices like mine, and others from North Korea, might impact their psychology,” he says.

Haneul just hopes they get home to North Korea. He knows there is a chance some of his relatives are among the troops sent to help Russia.

“I just hope they make it through and return safely.”

It is not unusual for couples to argue over naming their baby, but it rarely ends up in court.

But a couple from India’s southern state of Karnataka found themselves needing the courts to intervene following a three year fight over their son’s name.

In fact, the fight had got so nasty the couple were seeking a divorce.

It all began back in 2021, when the woman – who has not been named – gave birth to a boy and went to her parents’ home for a few weeks. It is common for women in India to move to their parents’ house after having a child to rest and recover.

Normally, the husband would come to bring both the mother and the baby back to their home.

But when the then-21-year-old woman refused to accept the name her husband had chosen for their son, he was upset – and never went to bring her back.

Instead, she chose the name Adi for her child – made up of the first letter of her name, and part of her husband’s, according to Hunsur’s assistant public prosecutor Sowmya MN.

Months turned into years and the woman, who was still at her parents’ house, approached the local court in Hunsur town of the state’s Mysuru district seeking financial support from her husband.

Her lawyer MR Harish told BBC Hindi that the the dispute had now escalated to the point where she was seeking a divorce.

“She wanted maintenance money as she is a home-maker,” he said.

The case was initially filed in a local court but later transferred to the People’s court, also known as the Lok Adalat, which handle cases which can be solved through mediation.

Despite multiple suggestions from judges, the couple remained firm – until they finally agreed on a name chosen by the court.

The child is now named Aryavardhana, Ms Sowmya says, which means “of nobility”.

The couple then exchanged garlands, a symbol of acceptance as per Indian tradition, and apparently left happily to continue their marriage.

This is not the only time in recent years that an Indian court has had to get involved when it comes to naming a child.

Last September, a child in Kerala was refused entry to school after it was revealed her birth certificate was blank.

Her mother approached the court explaining she had tried to get the now four-year-old registered, but officials refused to complete the form because the father – from whom she was separated – was not present.

In its order, the high court directed the birth registration office to accept the name suggested by the mother and add the father’s name.

French rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot’s ex-husband has been jailed for 20 years after drugging and raping her, and inviting dozens of strangers to also abuse her over nearly a decade.

Dominique Pelicot, 72, was found guilty of all charges by a judge in Avignon, southern France, and cried in court as he was sentenced to the maximum term.

He was on trial with 50 other men, all of whom were found guilty of at least one charge, although their jail terms were less than what prosecutors had demanded.

Ms Pelicot and her children looked emotionless as the verdicts were read out, occasionally glancing at the defendants and resting their heads against the wall.

The convictions brought an end to France’s largest ever rape trial, which over the course of three months has shocked the country and the world.

On Thursday morning, police shut the road opposite the courthouse to accommodate hundreds of people who turned up to offer their support to Ms Pelicot.

A large banner reading “Thank you Gisèle” was spread across a wall facing the entrance.

Underneath it, several members of the public chanted “rapist, we see you” as defendants trickled in ahead of the trial.

Speaking outside of the court following the verdicts, Ms Pelicot said the trial had been a “very difficult ordeal”.

Her grandson, who is in his late teens, was standing next to her for the first time, his arm over her shoulder as she addressed the media.

Her voice faltered only once as said she “never regretted” her decision to make the trial public “so society could see what was happening”.

The 72-year-old’s decision to waive her automatic right to anonymity was highly unusual.

She attended almost every day of the trial, appearing in the same courtroom as her husband of 50 years, who she has now divorced.

French and global media followed the case with growing interest and hundreds of journalists were present in court on Thursday.

As Ms Pelicot spoke, hundreds of people chanted her name and sang feminist songs.

She gave her “profound” thanks to her supporters and said she had “confidence” in there being a “better future” where men and women can live in “mutual respect”.

Ms Pelicot’s ex-husband Dominique Pelicot – who had already confessed to his crimes – was found guilty of aggravated rape.

He was also found guilty of the attempted aggravated rape of the wife of one of his co-accused, Jean-Pierre Maréchal.

Maréchal – who was described as Dominique’s “disciple” as he drugged and raped his own wife for years and invited Dominque to do the same – was jailed for 12 years.

Dominique Pelicot was also found guilty of taking indecent images of his daughter, Caroline Darian, and his daughters-in-law, Aurore and Celine.

Caroline – who was in court on Thursday – previously told the trial she felt she was the “forgotten victim” as, unlike in her mother’s case, there was no record of the abuse she is convinced was inflicted on her.

Dominique denied drugging and abusing his daughter.

“I will never come see you and you will die alone like a dog,” she shouted at him in court in November.

After the verdicts were delivered, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer said her client was “somewhat dazed” by his sentence and would consider whether to appeal. He has 10 days to decide whether to do so.

Dominique Pelicot stood accused alongside 50 other men, 46 of whom were found guilty of rape, two of attempted rape and two of sexual assault.

Several of them have already spent years in jail as they were arrested when police conducted their initial investigation in 2021, and will therefore be free relatively soon.

Most of the men on trial had denied that what they did was rape.

They argued they did not realise Ms Pelicot was unconscious and therefore did not “know” they were raping her. It is an argument that sparked a nationwide discussion about France’s legal definition of rape.

The defendants’ jail terms range from between three and 15 years.

In a statement to AFP news agency, the Pelicot children said they were “disappointed” by the “low sentences”.

For almost a decade from 2011, Dominique Pelicot drugged his now ex-wife and raped her, and recruited dozens of men online to have sex with her while she was unconscious.

His crimes were discovered in 2020, when police arrested him over a separate charge of filming up the skirts of women in a supermarket.

Police seized his devices and found thousands of videos on his laptop, with evidence of around 200 rapes.

Investigators used the videos to track down his co-accused, although they were unable to identify an additional 21 men.

Dominique Pelicot admitted the charges in 2020.

The trial sparked a discussion about whether the issue of consent should be added to France’s legal definition of rape, as it has been in other European countries.

Rape in France is currently defined as “any act of sexual penetration committed against another person by violence, constraint, threat or surprise”, meaning prosecutors must prove intent to rape.

Many of the defendants argued they did not realise Ms Pelicot had not consented, claiming they were “tricked” by Dominique Pelicot, and believed they were going to the couple’s house for a threesome involving a fantasy that the woman would be asleep.

The trial also shone a light on the issue of chemical submission, or drug-induced sexual assault.

Most of the 50 men came from towns and villages in a 50km (30 mile) radius of the Pelicots’ home village of Mazan.

They included firefighters, lorry drivers, soldiers, a journalist and a DJ, and were been described by defence lawyers as being “ordinary people”, earning them the nickname Monsieur-Tout-Le-Monde (Mr Everyman).

The trial also brought sexual violence against women into the spotlight in France, with many praising Ms Pelicot for her bravery in opening up the case to the public.

She previously said she was determined to make “shame change sides” from the victim to the rapist. It is a phrase that has been repeated by her supporters.

But Ms Pelicot has been clear that behind her facade of strength “lies a field of ruins” and despite the widespread acclaim for what she has done, she is a reluctant hero.

“She keeps repeating, ‘I am normal’ – she does not want to be considered as an icon,” her lawyer Stéphane Babonneau told the BBC.

“Women generally have a strength in them that they can’t even imagine and that they have to trust themselves. That’s her message.”

The once formidable Myanmar military is cracking from within – riddled with spies secretly working for the pro-democracy rebels, the BBC has found.

The military only has full control of less than a quarter of Myanmar’s territory, a BBC World Service investigation reveals.

The junta still controls the major cities and remains “extremely dangerous” according to the UN special rapporteur on Myanmar. But it has lost significant territory over the past 12 months.

The soldier spies are known as “Watermelons” – green on the outside, rebel red within. Outwardly loyal to the military but secretly working for the pro-democracy rebels whose symbolic colour is red.

A major based in central Myanmar says it was the military’s brutality that prompted him to switch sides.

“I saw the bodies of tortured civilians. I shed tears,” says Kyaw [not his real name]. “How can they be so cruel against our own people? We are meant to protect civilians, but now we’re killing people. It’s no longer an army, it’s a force that terrorises.”

More than 20,000 people have been detained and thousands killed, the UN says, since the military seized power in a coup in February 2021 – triggering an uprising.

Kyaw initially thought about defecting from the army, but decided with his wife that becoming a spy was “the best way to serve the revolution”.

When he judges it safe to do so, he leaks internal military information to the People’s Defense Forces [PDF] – a network of civilian militia groups. The rebels use the intelligence to mount ambushes on the military or to avoid attacks. Kyaw also sends them some of his wage, so they can buy weapons.

Spies like him are helping the resistance achieve what was once unthinkable.

The BBC assessed the power balance in more than 14,000 village groups as of mid-November this year, and found the military only has full control of 21% of Myanmar’s territory, nearly four years on from the start of the conflict.

The investigation reveals that ethnic armies and a patchwork of resistance groups now control 42% of the country’s land mass. Much of the remaining area is contested.

The military now controls less than at any time since they first took control of the country in 1962, according to the US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled).

Co-ordinated operations between ethnic armies and civilian militia groups have put the military on the back foot.

After heavy territorial losses earlier this year Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing made a rare admission that his forces were under pressure.

The leaked Watermelon intelligence from within the military is helping to tip the balance. Two years ago, the resistance set up a specialised unit to manage the growing network of spies and to recruit more.

Agents like Win Aung [not his real name] collect the Watermelon leaks, verify them where possible, and then pass them on to the rebel leaders in the relevant area.

He is a former intelligence officer who defected to the resistance after the coup. He says they are now getting new Watermelons every week and social media is a key recruitment tool.

Their spies, he says, range from low-ranking soldiers to high-ranking officers. They also claim to have Watermelons in the military government – “from the ministries down to village heads”.

They are put through a strict verification process to ensure they are not double agents.

Motivations for becoming a spy vary. While in Kyaw’s case it was anger, for a man we are calling “Moe” – a corporal in the navy – it was simply a desire to survive for his young family.

His wife, pregnant at the time, pushed him to do so, convinced the military was losing and he would die in battle.

He began leaking information to the Watermelon unit about weapons and troop movements.

This kind of intelligence is crucial, says pro-democracy rebel leader Daeva.

The ultimate goal of his resistance unit is to take control of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city and his former home. But they are a long way off.

The military retains the majority of major urban areas – home to crucial infrastructure and revenue.

“It’s easier said than done to attack and occupy [Yangon], Daeva says. “The enemy will not give up on [it] easily.”

Unable to physically penetrate the city, Daeva from his jungle base directs targeted attacks by underground cells in Yangon using Watermelon intelligence.

In August, we witnessed him making one such call. We were not given the details but were told it was to direct an assassination attempt on a colonel.

“We will do it inside the enemy’s security parameters,” he told them. “Be careful, the enemy is losing in every direction,” he added, telling them that this meant they were more likely to be on alert for infiltrators and spies.

Daeva says several major attacks by his unit have been the result of tip-offs.

“We started with nothing and now look at our success,” says Daeva.

But it comes at a cost. Watermelons have to live in fear of both sides, as navy corporal-turned spy Moe discovered.

Deployed from Yangon to Rakhine – a border region where the military is fighting an ethnic group siding with the resistance – he had to live with the terror that his intelligence could mean he himself was attacked.

In March this year, his anchored ship was hit with a projectile missile, followed by open fire. “There was no place to run. We were like rats in a cage.” Seven of his fellow soldiers were killed in the rebel attack.

“Our ability to protect [the moles] is very limited,” admits Win Aung. “We can’t publicly announce that they are Watermelons. And we can’t stop our forces from attacking any particular military convoy.”

He says that when this is explained to the Watermelons, however, they do not falter. Some have even responded: “When it comes to that moment, don’t hesitate, shoot.”

Outside the UK, watch on YouTube

But there are times when the spies can no longer bear the danger.

When Moe was set to be sent to another dangerous front line, he asked the Watermelon unit to smuggle him out into a resistance-controlled area. They do this using an underground network of monasteries and safe houses.

He left in the dead of night. The next morning, when he did not show up for duty, soldiers came round to the house. They interrogated his wife Cho, but she remained tight-lipped.

After days on the run Moe arrived at one of Daeva’s bases. Daeva thanked him over video call, before asking him what role he wanted to play now. Moe replied that, given his young family, he would like a non-combat role and would instead share his knowledge of military training.

A few weeks later he crossed into Thailand. Cho and the children fled their home too and hope to eventually join him and build a new life there.

The military is aggressively trying to reclaim lost territory, carrying out a wave of deadly bombings. With Chinese- and Russian-made fighter jets, it is in the air that it has the upper hand. It knows that the resistance is far from being one homogenous group and is seeking to exploit divisions between them.

“As the junta loses control, their brutality increases. It’s getting worse. The loss of life… the brutality, the torture as they lose ground, literally and figuratively,” says UN special rapporteur Tom Andrews.

The military is also conducting sweeps for Watermelons.

“When I heard about the sweeps, I stopped for a while,” says Kyaw. He says he always acts like a staunch supporter of the military to avoid unwanted attention.

But he is scared and doesn’t know how long he can stay hidden. Defecting is not an option, as he worries about abandoning his ageing parents, so for now, he will keep acting as a military spy, hoping to see a day when the revolution is over.

If and when that day comes, Watermelons like Kyaw and Moe will not be forgotten, Win Aung vows.

“We will treat them with honor, and allow them to choose what they want to do next in their lives.”

The military did not respond to the BBC’s request for an interview.

A funny thing happened on the way to a bipartisan agreement to fund US government operations and avoid a partial shutdown this week.

Conservatives in Congress – encouraged by tech multi-billionaire Elon Musk – balked.

Republicans tried to regroup on Thursday afternoon, offering a new, slimmed-down package to fund the government. That vote failed, as 38 Republicans joined most Democrats in voting no.

All this political drama provides just a taste of the chaos and unpredictability that could be in store under unified Republican rule in Washington next year.

The man at the centre of this week’s drama holds no official government title or role. What Elon Musk does have, however, is hundreds of billions of dollars, a social media megaphone and the ear not just of the president of the United States but also rank-and-file conservatives in Congress.

On Wednesday morning, the tech tycoon took to X, which he purchased for $44bn two years ago, to disparage a compromise that Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson had struck with Democrats to temporarily fund US government operations until mid-March.

As the number of his posts about the proposed agreement stretched into triple digits, at times amplifying factually inaccurate allegations made by conservative commentators, opposition to the legislation in Congress grew.

And by Wednesday evening, Donald Trump – perhaps sensing that he needed to get in front of the growing conservative uprising – publicly stated that he, too, opposed the government funding bill.

He said it contained wasteful spending and Democratic priorities, while also demanding that Congress take the politically sensitive step of raising – or even doing away with – the legal cap on newly issued American debt that the US would reach sometime next summer.

Support for the stopgap spending bill then collapsed, forcing Johnson and his leadership team to scramble to find an alternative path forward. As they did, Musk celebrated, proclaiming that “the voice of the people has triumphed”.

It may be more accurate, however, to say that it was Musk’s voice that triumphed.

• Listen to Americast – Why has Musk been pushing for a government shutdown?
• Five things to know about the looming government shutdown

On Thursday afternoon, Republicans unveiled a new proposal that suspended the debt limit for the first two years of Trump’s second term, funded the government until March and included some disaster relief and other measures included in the original funding package.

But Musk’s involvement may not land well with some legislators. Democrats in the chamber joked about “President Musk”, while even a few Republicans publicly grumbled.

“Who?” Pennsylvania Republican Glenn Thompson responded when asked about Musk. “I don’t see him in the chamber.”

Musk may have been the instigator, but this latest congressional funding crisis reveals what has been – and is likely to continue to be – an ongoing challenge for the narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

For two years, Republicans in the chamber have grappled with keeping a united front amidst a party populated, at least in part, by politicians with an active contempt for the government they help to run.

Internal divisions delayed Kevin McCarthy’s election as speaker of the House in January 2022 and led to his removal – a first in American history – the following year. Johnson ultimately replaced him, but only after weeks of leaderless limbo.

• Musk joins Bezos and Trump dinner at Mar-a-Lago
• Will Musk be able to cut $2 trillion from government spending?
• Why government shutdowns seem to only happen in US
• What happens during a US government shutdown?

Some Republicans had hoped that with Trump’s election, members of their majority, which will become even slimmer when the new Congress is sworn in next month, would be more willing to march in lockstep to support the new president’s agenda. And some are.

“I think President Trump pretty much laid out the plan, so I don’t know what the discussions are about,” Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna told reporters after internal Republican meetings on Thursday afternoon.

What this week has revealed, however, is that the president-elect may not always offer the legislature the clear, consistent direction it requires.

His insistence on raising the debt limit, for instance, caught many in his own party by surprise. And outside influences, such as from Musk or others, could inject extra instability into the process.

If Republicans aren’t able to reach near unanimity in the House, they will have to find ways to win over Democrats if they want to achieve any kind of legislative success. And what this week showed (once again) is that the kind of political compromises necessary could prompt a greater number of Republican defections.

Trump’s party will be challenged to effectively govern on its own – but it also may not be able to tolerate governing with the help of Democrats.

If there is no political equilibrium in the chamber, it would put Trump’s more ambitious legislative priorities at risk before he even takes office.

Republicans may yet find a way to avoid a lengthy government shutdown through a temporary budget resolution, even though the first round of pressure from Trump resulted in an embarrassing failure to win enough support within his own party.

For Johnson, however, the damage may have already been done. His authority over House Republicans has been undercut – first by Musk and then by Trump – just a few weeks before he stands for re-election as speaker of the House.

Already one Republican, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, has said he will not support Johnson’s re-election. Others, including members of Johnson’s own leadership team, have been noncommittal. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the firebrand Georgia congresswoman who unsuccessfully pushed to remove Johnson in May, suggested Musk become speaker.

Meanwhile, Trump – the one man who could throw Johnson a lifeline – has been equivocal, telling Fox News that Johnson could “easily” remain speaker if he “acts decisively and tough”.

Decisiveness may not be enough, however, when every direction for the speaker appears to lead to a dead end.

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

Javed Iqbal, a Pakistani carpenter working in Saudi Arabia, tells BBC Urdu that he deeply regrets his decision to illegally send his 13-year-old son to Europe.

“The agents had sent dozens of boys from the village to Greece and Italy,” he says. “My son, who was stubborn and fell for their tricks, told us repeatedly, ‘If you don’t send me to Europe, I will leave home.'”

Javed’s son, Mohammad Abid, was among five Pakistani nationals who authorities confirm died in waters near Greece after three boats carrying migrants capsized last week.

Pakistani authorities have urged parents to stop their children from embarking on such journeys. But it has not stopped hundreds of youths from trying.

While 47 people from the recent disaster have been rescued, according to embassy officials in Greece, the 35 who remain missing are now presumed dead after the Greek Coast Guard called off rescue efforts on Wednesday.

BBC Urdu spoke to the grieving families of two victims from the district of Pasrur, in central Punjab.

Of Javed’s four children, Abid was the third.

“Abid’s elder brother and sister go to school, but Abid stopped going to school,” says Javed, who lives and works in Saudi Arabia.

Over the past two years, several of their relatives, as well as other boys from their village, have gone to Greece through agents, he added.

All these boys would upload videos on social media after they arrived in Greece. After seeing social media videos shared by these boys, Abid would ask, “When will the day come when I too will go to Europe?”

“I explained to him many times that you are still young, you can go when you grow up, but he remained adamant,” says Javed. “I told him to come to me in Saudi Arabia, but his only wish was to do go Europe.”

In a recent press conference, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Greece, Aamar Aftab Qureshi, expressed surprise that a child was among the five Pakistani nationals who died in the accidents. He added that young children were among the survivors.

“This trend of sending children illegally is extremely dangerous,” he said.

But Javed says that whenever Abid returned home after meeting these agents, he would threaten to leave home if his mother did not raise money to send him.

“She would make me talk to him on the phone, and I would explain to him. He would agree temporarily, but after a day or two, he would go off the rails again,” Javed says.

So Javed sold part of his farm land and his wife sold some of her jewellery. They paid the agent 2.56 million Pakistan rupees (£7,300; $9,200) to bring Abid to Europe.

Javed says that his son arrived in Egypt from Faisalabad airport and then went to Libya, where he stayed for two months and kept in contact daily with his family.

“He was happy and kept saying that there were some difficulties, but that they were temporary and he would soon reach his destination,” says Javed. “We didn’t know that his destination was not Europe, but death.”

“When there was a rumour about a boat capsizing in the sea near Greece, we tried to get information but nothing was coming out,” he recalls.

The family eventually managed to get in touch with a friend in Greece, who went to the migrant hospital and found Abid’s body. They also subsequently received a call from the Pakistani embassy in Greece.

In Ucha Jajja, another village in central Punjab, is another family grieving the death of their son. Irfan Arshad’s 19-year-old son Muhammad Sufyan was also killed in the accident, as confirmed by Pakistani authorities in Greece.

According to Irfan Arshad, the agent deceived them until the last moment, saying that he was sending their son safely in a boat and that there was no need to worry.

“When there was chatter in the village that the boat had capsized near Greece, darkness fell before our eyes,” Irfan says. “It feels like I bought my son’s death with my own hands by paying three million rupees.”

Irfan, who owns an oil and fertiliser shop, has four sons. Two of them are living in Bahrain, while the third son is already in Greece. He sold an acre of land to send his youngest son to Greece.

The FIA has filed a human trafficking case against four people over the death of Muhammad Sufyan. According to Irfan’s account in the report, after Sufyan was taken to Libya, the agent had assured them that Sufyan would be transferred to Greece soon. Instead, Sufyan was kept in a safe house in Libya for two months and only given one meal a day.

“My son got cholera from eating stale food, which made him very weak,” Irfan says. “Whenever we talked to Sufyan, he sounded very worried. We kept thinking maybe it was because he was away from home for the first time, and when he reached Greece, he would be very happy.”

After he was finally put on a boat to Greece, Sufyan’s family received a call from his companions about his death.

In 2023, a boat carrying illegal immigrants sank around the same area of Greece, resulting in the death of 262 Pakistanis. After the tragedy, authorities vowed a strong response against agents involved in human trafficking.

Such sentiments were echoed again on Wednesday as officials met to discuss the latest tragedy. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that the repeated occurrence of such incidents is a matter of concern for Pakistan, and vowed strict action against those involved in human trafficking.

Abdul Qadir Qamar, regional director of the Federal Investigation Agency, told BBC Urdu that the suspects have been running a human trafficking ring in different countries for a long time.

“The FIA’s investigation so far has revealed that the suspects who illegally sent youths abroad in Pasrur belong to the same family,” he said. “And these suspects have so far sent hundreds of people abroad illegally.”

The problem, he said, was that the families of boat accident survivors often do not want to take action against the agents.

The court has recorded 174 cases of human trafficking so far. Only four have been convicted.

Irfan says that Pakistan’s foreign ministry told him Sufyan’s body would reach Pakistan in early January – but that is too long a wait for his family.

“We are dying moment by moment,” Irfan says. “Until we see our son’s body, we will be neither living nor dead.

“How can those whose sons die ever have peace?”

When I left London almost two weeks ago after the rebel coalition captured Aleppo – a stunning victory dwarfed by what followed – I thought I would be reporting a shooting war.

The group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, was sweeping all before it, but I assumed that the regime would fight, as it did not stop doing as it was losing ground in the years before the Russians intervened in 2015 to bomb Syrian towns and villages to rubble.

Almost a decade later, it was clear that Bashar al-Assad’s Russian, Iranian and Lebanese allies had other wars to think about.

But while the regime struggled with unwilling conscripts, it could always find Syrians who were prepared to fight and die for it, even at the height of the war after 2011, when rebels controlled much of Damascus outside the city centre and the road to Beirut.

I visited those men on the front line many times.

Many of the most effective units were led by officers from Assad’s own Alawite community.

In Aleppo in around 2015 an Alawite general handed out glasses of perfectly distilled arak, poured from bottles that once held Jack Daniels.

Proudly, he said the arak, an aniseed based spirit popular across the Middle East, came from the Assad family’s home town in the hills behind the port of Latakia. Outside, his unit was pounding the rebel-held east side of the city.

Not all were Alawites. In Jobar, a district on the edge of central Damascus, a Christian officer loyal to Assad from the Syrian Arab Army took me into the tunnels they had dug under the ruins to attack rebels.

He told how the rebels also had tunnels and how sometimes they would break into each other’s, killing in the darkness.

The young man had a crucifix tattooed on his wrist and another hanging around his neck, and he talked about how he had to fight to protect his community against jihadi extremists on the other side.

My instincts about the fighting spirit of Assad’s depleted band of loyalists could not have been more wrong.

On Saturday 7 December I went to sleep after hearing the news that Homs had fallen.

By the time I woke up Bashar al-Assad was on his way to Russia and rebel fighters were starting to celebrate on the streets of Damascus.

They shot more bullets into the air in celebration than they fired in anger at Assad’s loyalists, who were running for their lives.

I saw hundreds of cars queuing to leave at the border with Lebanon, full of disgruntled, defeated men and frightened families.

Rank and file soldiers dumped their uniforms and weapons without firing a shot and went home.

The Assad regime crumpled, hollowed out by corruption, cruelty and brutal disdain for the lives of Syrians. Even Assad’s own Alawite community did not fight for him.

That was why on Thursday evening this week, instead of sheltering from shells and bullets on some freezing street in Homs or Hama, as I’d expected, I walked through the marble halls of the presidential palace in Damascus with Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s de facto leader.

He has given up his uniform, and swapped his wartime pseudonym, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, for his real name.

Many Syrians doubt his claim that he has also swapped his old jihadist beliefs for a more tolerant form of Syrian religious nationalism.

It is true that he broke with al Qaeda in 2016, after a long career as a jihadist fighter in Iraq and Syria. But as I found in Assad’s palace, Ahmed al-Sharaa, a tall, quietly spoken man in his early forties, is reluctant to get too specific about the Syria he wants.

He comes across as highly intelligent and politically astute. Like many astute politicians, he often does not give a straight answer to a straight question.

He denied he wanted Syria to become a Middle Eastern Afghanistan.

The Taliban, he said, ruled “a tribal society. Syria is entirely different.” Syria’s new rulers would respect its culture and history.

When I asked whether women would have the freedoms they have come to expect here, he said 60 per cent of students in universities in Idlib, his powerbase, were female.

But he tried not to answer a question about mandating hijab – Islamic dress – for women.

Damascus has been buzzing with rumours of bearded HTS men ordering women to cover their hair.

I pointed out that there had been a big row on social media after a woman asked for a selfie with him and then pulled up her hood when the photo was taken.

Conservatives criticised al-Sharaa for consenting to pose with a woman who was not part of his family. Liberals saw her hood as a dark omen of Syria’s future.

If he was exasperated by the question he did not show it.

“I did not force her. But it’s my personal freedom. I want photos taken for me the way that suits me. I did not force her. That’s not the same as having a law about it that applies countrywide. But there is a culture in this country that the law needs to recognise.”

Al-Sharaa was referring to the fact that many Syrians, not just in the majority Sunni Muslim community, are pious.

Many women wear hijab. The point, secular Syrians would say, is to be able to choose.

In half a century of Assad rule, Syrians developed survival strategies which often included hiding their own feelings and doing what was expected of them.

Shocked, nervous, secular Syrians showed me videos on their phones of mass prayers outside universities when the students went back last Sunday.

Was it, they asked, real piety or young people doing as they were told because that is how it’s been here for their whole lives?

It will all, al-Sharaa said, be a matter for a new constitution to be decided by a panel of legal experts.

Al-Sharaa’s critics will point out that as things stand, he chooses who gets on to the committee that he says will be writing new laws as well as a new constitution.

Ahmed al-Sharaa wanted to talk most about the old regime’s oppression of the people.

“The Syrian problems are far too bigger than the issues you are asking about. Half the population was kicked out of Syria or forcibly displaced from their houses.

“They were targeted with barrel bombs and unguided dumb bombs and over 250 chemical attacks. Many Syrians drowned at sea trying to escape to Europe.”

He recognised that Syria has no chance of starting to stabilise and rebuild if sanctions are not lifted.

Sanctions were aimed originally at the Assad regime. To keep them, he said, meant treating the victim the same as the oppressor.

He denied the group he leads is a terror organisation, which at the moment is the position of the UN and most of the world’s strongest countries.

Visits by foreign diplomats suggest changing both the sanctions and terrorist listings could be feasible.

He was dismissive when I pointed out I knew diplomats had told him that changing that status would depend on proof he was keeping his promise to respect minority rights and run an inclusive political process.

“What matters to me is that the Syrian people believe me. We promised the Syrian people to liberate them from this criminal regime and we did that. This is what matters to me first and last.

“I don’t very much care about what will be said about us abroad. I’m not obliged to prove to the world that we work seriously to achieve the interests of our people in Syria.”

During the last two weeks, I have heard many Syrians say that they want to be left alone to try to rebuild their country.

That sounds like a pipe dream.

The war destroyed much of the country, but it also drained away Syria’s sovereignty.

Bashar al-Assad became a client of Iran and Russia and fled the country when they stopped supporting him.

The US is in the north-east, to hunt remnants of Islamic State and to protect its Kurdish allies.

Turkey controls much of the north-west and has its own Arab-led militia.

There are signs that the Turks, who have a close relationship with HTS, are preparing a renewed assault on Syrian Kurds who have a close relationship with Kurdish separatists inside Turkey.

Israel, currently as aggressive as it has been for many years, has most overtly exploited the vacuum of power it saw in Syria.

It continues to bomb the remains of the state’s military infrastructure and taking more Syrian land to add to the Golan Heights which it has occupied since 1967.

The Israelis, as ever, justify their actions as self-defence.

The UN special envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen told me that Israel’s actions were “irresponsible.” Israel, he said should not act in a manner that could “destabilise this very, very fragile transitional process.”

Ahmed al-Sharaa knows he cannot stand up to Israel’s US-backed power.

“Syria is exhausted from the war regardless of whether Israel is strong or not. Syria needs to get stronger and more developed. We don’t have any plans of aggression against Israel. Syria will not be a threat to Israel or anyone.”

Ahmed al-Sharaa’s agenda is overflowing.

Syria is a broken country that he says he wants to repair and revive, full of challenges that might make his task impossible.

HTS is not the only armed group in Syria and there are some that want to destroy his fledgling administration. Enemies of HTS in the Islamic State network might try destabilising attacks.

The desire Syrians have for vengeance against Assad’s killers – and the ex-president himself – could explode into destructive public rage if HTS cannot show that it is bringing to justice the men who kept their boots on Syrian throats for so long.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, correctly, sees Syria as a fulcrum at the heart of the Middle East.

“Syria is an important country with a strategic location, very influential in the world, look how America is present in it on the one hand, Russia on the other hand and regional countries such as Turkey, Iran and Israel as well.”

He says that is why the outside world should help Syria recover.

It is also why powerful states might not let that happen.

Sir Paul McCartney has reunited with his former Beatles bandmate Sir Ringo Starr during a gig at London’s O2 Arena.

The drummer was brought on stage to thunderous applause before the pair launched into classics Helter Skelter and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

“I’ve had a great night and I love you all,” Sir Ringo said later as he walked offstage.

Thursday’s performance was the last in Sir Paul’s Got Back tour, which saw the 82-year-old play in France, Spain and Brazil.

Sir Ringo was not the only musical guest appearance on Thursday night. Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood joined Sir Paul for a rendition of Get Back, during which the latter played his original Hofner 500/1 bass guitar for the first time in more than 50 years.

The instrument was stolen in 1972 but Sir Paul was reunited with it earlier this year.

Sir Paul and Sir Ringo, who are the last surviving core members of The Beatles, have played together a number of times since the band broke up in 1969.

That includes at Sir Ringo’s 2015 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction and on Sir Paul’s last tour, Freshen Up, in 2019.

Sir Paul is known for treating his fans to jumbo performances packed with hits from his lengthy musical career, which also includes the band Wings and several solo albums.

Thursday night was no difference, with him playing nearly 40 songs on various instruments.

Other highlights from Thursday’s gig included a performance of In Spite of All the Danger, the first song recorded by the Sir Paul’s first band, The Quarrymen, of which the late John Lennon and George Harrison were also members.

He was also joined by a children’s choir to sing his festive favourite Wonderful Christmastime.

Eight people accused of abetting the jihadist murder of French teacher Samuel Paty are to learn their fate after a six-week trial in a Paris court.

They include the father of a schoolgirl whose lie about Paty’s alleged discrimination against Muslims in the classroom set in chain the events leading to his beheading on a street in October 2020.

Also on trial are a Muslim activist who led an online campaign against Paty, two boyhood friends of Chechen-born killer Abdoullakh Anzorov who allegedly helped him acquire weapons, and four radicalised men with whom he exchanged messages on social media.

Anzorov was shot dead by police minutes after killing the 47 year-old history-geography teacher outside his secondary school in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Saint-Honorine.

He was fired up by claims circulating on the internet that a few days earlier Paty had ordered Muslims to leave his class of 13-year-olds before revealing obscene pictures of the prophet Muhammad.

In fact Paty had been conducting a lesson on freedom of speech, and before showing one of the controversial images first published by Charlie Hebdo magazine, he advised pupils to avert their eyes if they feared being offended.

The schoolgirl, named as Z. Chnina, had not even been in class when this happened, but told her father she had been punished for raising an objection.

The trial has centred on legal arguments over whether people who in advance had no knowledge of the attack – or in some cases even of its perpetrator – could by their words nonetheless be guilty of “terrorist association”.

Summing up in court this week, prosecution lawyers asked for jail terms of between 18 months suspended and 16 years for the accused, saying their actions had indirectly led to the atrocity.

However, the prosecution had also angered members of Paty’s family by refusing to push for maximum sentences, and by downgrading the qualification of some of the imputed crimes.

During the trial, the court heard the first public testimony from the girl, Z. Chnina, now aged 17.

A year ago she was given a short suspended sentence for slander by a juvenile court, whose hearings were conducted behind closed doors.

“I want to apologise to all the [Paty family] because were it not for my lies they would not be here today,” she said, in sobs.

“And I want to apologise to my father because when he made the video it was partly because of my lie.”

In the days following Paty’s freedom-of-speech class, her father Brahim Chnina made videos denouncing the teacher by name. He also enlisted the help of activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui to spread the campaign through his social media network.

Chnina and Sefrioui never called for action against Paty, and they were unaware of the existence of Anzorov until the killing took place.

But for the prosecution they were nonetheless guilty of “terrorist association”, because they knew of the possible consequences of their campaign.

“No-one is saying they wanted the death of Samuel Paty, but in lighting 1,000 digital fuses they knew that one of them would lead to jihadist violence against the teacher,” according to prosecution’s submission.

The context in October 2020 was one of heightened tensions over jihadist violence, after Charlie Hebdo republished some of the controversial Muhammad cartoons. Five years earlier most of the staff of the magazine had been murdered in a jihadist gun attack at their Paris office.

This week in court the longest jail terms were requested for the two friends of Anzorov who accompanied him when he bought a knife and a fake gun. One of them also drove Anzorov to the school on the afternoon of the attack.

Neither of these defendants is a radicalised Muslim, and it was not established in court that they knew of Anzorov’s plans.

That was why the prosecution downgraded the charge against them from “complicity in a terrorist attack” which carries a possible life sentence.

The four other accused are people with whom Anzorov conversed on chatlines, again without him ever revealing his intention to kill Paty.

One of these, a convert to Islam called Priscilla Mangel, admitted making “provocative” remarks online about the Paty case but said she would never have made them had she known Anzorov’s intentions.

“For me this was an anodyne discussion with an anonymous person.”

For defence lawyers, none of the accused would have faced criminal proceedings for what they said, had it not been for the murder of Paty.

So the key legal question facing the court is whether utterances can become illegal depending on what follows.

A Labour minister has been named in an investigation into claims her family embezzled up to £3.9bn (Tk 590 billion) from infrastructure projects in Bangladesh.

Tulip Siddiq, 42, who as the Treasury’s Economic Secretary is responsible for tackling corruption in UK financial markets, is alleged to have brokered a deal with Russia in 2013 that overinflated the price of a new nuclear power plant in Bangladesh.

The allegation is part of a wider investigation by Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) into Siddiq’s aunt, Sheikh Hasina, who was deposed as prime minister of the country in August.

A source close to Siddiq said these were “trumped up charges”.

The source also said the allegations were “completely politically motivated” and designed to damage her aunt.

Conservative shadow home office minister Matt Vickers said: “The fact Labour’s anti-corruption minister is reportedly embroiled in a corruption case is the latest stain on Keir Starmer’s judgement.

“It is high time she came clean. The British public deserve a government that is focused on their priorities, not distracted by yet another scandal.”

Downing Street said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had confidence in Siddiq, and she will continue her responsibility as the minister overseeing anti-corruption efforts.

Siddiq has “denied any involvement in the claims” accusing her of involvement in embezzlement, according to the prime minister’s official spokesman.

But she has recused herself – or stepped back – from any political decisions involving Bangladesh, the spokesman added.

The investigation is based on a series of allegations made by Bobby Hajjaj, a senior political opponent of Hasina.

The BBC understands that Siddiq has not had any contact with the ACC as part of the investigation.

The ACC is also investigating several of Hasina’s family members, including Siddiq’s mother Sheikh Rehana Siddiq, and senior officials from her government.

Hasina, who was in charge of Bangladesh for more than 20 years, was seen as an autocrat whose government ruthlessly clamped down on dissent.

Since fleeing the country Hasina has been accused of multiple crimes by the new Bangladeshi government.

Hasina is wanted by Bangladesh’s International Criminal Tribunal (ICT) for her alleged involvements in “crimes against humanity” that took place during the demonstrations, in which hundreds were killed.

Arrest warrants have also been issued for 45 others, including former government ministers who also fled the country.

Syed Faruk, who runs the UK branch of Hasina’s Awami League party, said the claims were “fabricated”.

Siddiq was elected MP for Hampstead and Highgate in 2015, the north London constituency neighbouring Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

Corruption allegations and convictions against top leaders of ousted governments are not new in Bangladesh.

Hasina’s main predecessor as prime minister, Khaleda Zia faced similar charges, which she also dismissed as politically motivated. As did ex-president Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who seized power as head of the army during a bloodless coup in 1982.

The Bangladeshi judiciary’s independence has long been questioned.

Government changes often bring judicial reshuffles, with ruling parties regularly accused of targeting political opponents.

Court documents seen by the BBC show Hajjaj has accused Siddiq of mediating and coordinating meetings for the Bangladeshi officials with the Russian government to build the £10bn Rooppur Power Plant Project.

It is claimed that the deal inflated the price of the plant by £1bn, according to the documents – 30% of which was allegedly distributed to Siddiq and other family members via a complex network of banks and overseas companies.

In total, Hajjaj alleges £3.9bn was siphoned out of the project by Hasina’s family and minister.

Footage from 2013 appears to show Siddiq attended the deal’s signing by Hasina and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, recorded by the Associated Press.

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The legal case against Luigi Mangione expanded on Thursday, with the federal government filing four criminal charges against him, including one punishable by death.

Mr Mangione, who is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson earlier this month, arrived by helicopter in Manhattan in the afternoon after being extradited from Pennsylvania.

He disembarked in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs and, surrounded by officials and armed guards, walked before cameras and journalists to the van that would take him to court.

The 26-year-old will remain behind bars as his lawyers said that they would not yet present an application for bail.

During a 15-minute hearing, where he appeared wearing a blue sweater and khaki pants with his feet shackled, a judge read out loud the four federal charges against him.

Mr Mangione’s hearing was packed with reporters, members of the public and court staff. Several people outside protested in support of him, holding a sign saying: “Luigi freed us”.

The level of protection being provided to Mr Mangione is equivalent to what visiting diplomats and dignitaries typically receive when they visit New York, Felipe Rodriguez, a former detective sergeant who served on the NYPD for 21 years, told the BBC.

Mr Rodriguez, who now teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said Mr Mangione was receiving “extreme protective executive protection” – or what officers there simply call “protecting the package”.

New York Mayor Eric Adams was part of a throng police officials who met Mr Mangione’s chopper when it landed in Manhattan.

Mr Mangione’s day began with a hearing in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested on 9 December, to discuss extraditing him back to New York, where the shooting occurred. He appeared shackled in the orange jumpsuit, and afterwards was taken by plane to an airport on Long Island, New York, then to Manhattan.

Mr Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, five days after Mr Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare CEO, was shot and killed. He was found with a fake ID and so-called “ghost gun”, police have said.

During the New York hearing on Thursday, Mr Mangione sat between his two lawyers – Karen Friedman Agnifilo, and her husband, Mark Agnifilo, who also is representing rapper Sean “Diddy Combs” in his sex trafficking case.

Mr Mangione nodded along during the hearing as New York Magistrate Judge Katherine Parker read him his rights, including the right to remain silent.

She also read the charges against him: two counts of stalking, a firearms offense, and murder through use of a firearm, which opens up the possibility of the death penalty.

The proceedings were largely standard, but Mr Mangione’s lawyer, Ms Agnifilo, who appeared in the courtroom on crutches, asked prosecutors to clarify how many cases Mr Mangione would face.

• Who was Brian Thompson, healthcare CEO gunned down in New York?
• How Luigi Mangione’s legal defence could take shape

He already was indicted on state charges in New York, including first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism, and now also faces federal charges.

Ms Agnifilo told the court that the overlapping cases – and a murder charge against Mr Mangione that makes him eligible for the death penalty – were “confusing” and “highly unusual”.

“I’ve never seen anything like what is happening here” in 30 years of practicing law, she said.

The suspect is being held at Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) Brooklyn.

New York prosecutors began to share evidence in their case against Mr Mangione with a grand jury last week. The evidence against him includes a positive match of his fingerprints with those discovered at the crime scene, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

According to New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the suspect arrived in New York City on 24 November, staying in a Manhattan hostel while using a fake ID before carrying out the attack against Mr Thompson 10 days later.

In addition to the ghost gun – a gun assembled from untraceable parts – and fake ID, a passport and a handwritten document indicating “motivation and mindset” also were found on Mr Mangione when he was arrested, police said.

Dominique Pelicot has been found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison for drugging his ex-wife, Gisèle, raping her and inviting dozens of men to also abuse her over nearly a decade, along with other charges.

Pelicot had admitted the charges against him.

He was on trial with 50 other men, the majority of whom denied charges of rape. The court in the French city of Avignon found 47 of the men guilty of rape, two guilty of attempted rape, and two guilty of sexual assault.

The defendants now have 10 days to appeal.

Most of the 50 come from towns and villages in a 50km (30 mile) radius of the Pelicots’ own village of Mazan.

Among them are firefighters, lorry drivers, soldiers, security guards, a journalist and a DJ.

Here is a list of the men convicted. The BBC had not previously fully named the defendants due to French law.

1. Dominique Pelicot: Guilty of aggravated rape on his ex-wife, Gisèle. Also guilty of the attempted aggravated rape of the wife of one of the co-accused, Jean-Pierre Marechal, Cillia, and taking indecent images of his daughter, Caroline, and his daughters-in-law, Aurore and Celine. Sentenced to 20 years. He is 72.
2. Jean-Pierre Marechal: Guilty of attempted rape and aggravated rape of his wife, as well as drugging her. Sentenced to 12 years. The only one of the 51 who was not accused of raping or attempting to rape Gisèle, the 63-year-old admitted to following Dominique Pelicot’s lead, drugging his own wife for five years, raping her and inviting Dominique to rape her too.
3. Charly Arbo: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to 13 years. He is 30 years old.
4. Cyrille Delville: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to eight years. He is a father-of-two.
5. Christian Lescole: Guilty of aggravated rape. Acquitted of having child abuse imagery. Sentenced to nine years. He is a volunteer firefighter and father of two daughters. He has been in jail since 2021.
6. Lionel Rodriguez: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to eight years. The 44-year-old was an employee in the same supermarket where Dominique Pelicot got caught upskirting in 2020, leading to the rape investigation.
7. Nicolas Francois: Guilty of aggravated rape and having child abuse imagery. Sentenced to eight years and banned from working in jobs with children for several years. He is a 43-year-old freelance journalist.
8. Jacques Cubeau, 73, lorry driver: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to five years. He is a divorced father-of-two.
9. Patrice Nicolle: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to eight years. The 55-year-old father-of-two is an electrician.
10. Thierry Parisis: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to eight years. He is 54.
11. Simoné Mekenese: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to nine years. The 43-year-old construction worker and father-of-six lived next door to the Pelicots.
12. Nizar Hamida: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to 10 years. The 40-year-old had worked as a hairdresser, builder and delivery driver.
13. Boris Moulin: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to eight years. He is a 37-year-old delivery driver.
14. Jerome Vilela: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to 13 years. The 46-year-old former firefighter and supermarket employee is divorced with two children. He has been in jail since 2021.
15. Didier Sambuchi: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to five years. The 68-year-old is a retired lorry driver and father-of-two.
16. Quentin Hennebert: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to seven years. The 34-year-old former prison guard now works as an ambulance driver.
17. Philippe Leleu: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to five years of which two are suspended. He is a 62-year-old gardener.
18. Jean-Luc LA: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to 10 years. The 46-year-old has four children. He has been in jail since 2023.
19. Fabien Sotton: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to 11 years. He has three children. His criminal record includes domestic violence and sexual assault of a minor. He has been in jail since 2021.
20. Karim Sebaoui: Guilty of aggravated rape and having child abuse imagery. Sentenced to 10 years. The 40-year-old is an unmarried IT specialist.
21. Joan Kawai: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to 10 years. He went to the Pelicots’ the same night his daughter was born. He has been in jail since 2021.
22. Jean-Marc LeLoup: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to six years. The 74-year-old is a retired driver.
23. Andy Rodriguez: Guilty of attempted rape and aggravating factors. Sentenced to six years. The 37-year-old has already spent several months in jail on domestic violence charges.
24. Vincent Coullet: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to 10 years. He is 43 years old and already detained for domestic violence.
25. Adrien Longeron: Guilty of aggravated rape and child abuse imagery. Sentenced to six years. The 34-year-old was jailed in 2020 for raping and stalking three former girlfriends.
26. Hughes Malago: Guilty of attempted rape and two aggravating factors. Sentenced to five years. The 39-year-old is a tiler and biker.
27. Ahmed Tbarik: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to eight years. The 54-year-old plumber who set up his own business, as well as a boxing club, had been married for 30 years when he went to the Pelicots’ home.
28. Husamettin Dogan: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to nine years. The 43-year-old builder is married and has a child. He had precedents for drug trafficking.
29. Romain Vandevelde: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to 15 years. He is 63 and HIV-positive. He has been in jail since 2021.
30. Joseph Cocco: Guilty of aggravated sexual assault. Sentenced to three years. He is a 69-year-old divorced father of one.
31. Saifeddine Ghabi: Acquitted of rape and attempted rape. Guilty of sexual assault. Sentenced to three years. The 37-year-old lorry driver is a father-of-three.
32. Jean Tirano: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to eight years. He is a 52-year-old roofer.
33. Mohamed Rafaa: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to eight years. The 70-year-old worked as a DJ and club manager. He has been in jail since 2021.
34. Ludovick Blemeur: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to seven years. The 39-year-old former firefighter and warehouse worker had a three-month-old baby daughter when he visited the Pelicots.
35. Patrick Aron: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to six years, but walks free today as he has medical issues and will need to be placed in a special jail, according to the judge. The 60-year-old was married for 25 years with two kids.
36. Abdelali Dallal: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to eight years, but walks free today due to medical issues and will need to be placed in a special jail, according to the judge. He is 47.
37. Grégory Serviol: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to eight years. The 33-year-old is a painter and decorator.
38. Cedric Grassot: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to 12 years. The 50-year-old is a delivery driver.
39. Cendric Venzin: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to nine years. The 44-year-old worked a series of odd jobs and at the time he was arrested in 2022 was managing a hotel in Corsica.
40. Mahdi Daoudi: Guilty of mass rape and drugging. Sentenced to eight years. The 36-year-old is married.
41. Thierry Postat: Guilty of aggravated mass rape and drugging, and possession of child pornography. Sentenced to 12 years, and banned from working with children for life. The 61-year-old refrigeration specialist is divorced with three grown children. He has been in jail since 2021.
42. Florian Rocca: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to seven years. The father of three daughters was already convicted of theft, driving without a license and drug-related offences.
43. Dominique Davies: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to 13 years. The 45-year-old is a lorry driver.
44. Cyprien Culieras: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to six years. He is 45 and has eight prior convictions.
45. Mathieu Dartus: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to seven years. The 53-year-old former baker raised two children after his wife died.
46. Cyril Beaubis: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to nine years. The 47-year-old is a lorry driver.
47. Paul-Koikoi Grovogui: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to eight years. He is 31.
48. Omar Douiri: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to eight years. The 36-year-old was married and employed by a cleaning company.
49. Redouane Azougagh: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to nine years. The 40-year-old father of four kids from two different wives has prior convictions for domestic violence.
50. Hassan Ouamou: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to 12 years. The 30-year-old is currently on the run in Morocco and has told investigators he has no intention of returning to France.
51. Redouane El Farihi: Guilty of aggravated rape. Sentenced to eight years.

• Here’s what you need to know about the Pelicot trial
• Follow live updates
• How an ordinary woman shook attitudes to rape in France
• New name, no photos: Gisèle Pelicot removes all trace of her husband

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Crouched alone on the floor, in a tiny, windowless cell, Nasim could hear what sounded like other prisoners being tortured. The guard would bang on the door and say: “Can you hear that beating? Get ready, you’re next.”

She was “interrogated for 10 to 12 hours every day” and repeatedly threatened with execution.

The bare cell, no more than two metres across, had no bed or toilet. Four months in solitary confinement was the 36-year-old hairdresser’s introduction to Iran’s notorious Evin prison. The only people she saw were her interrogators. She thought that she would “die and no-one would know”.

We have pieced together accounts from multiple reliable sources to build a picture of everyday life for Nasim and other women, who are currently being held in Evin prison.

Many were among the tens of thousands of people arrested in connection with the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests that followed the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022. Mahsa had been arrested for allegedly breaking Iranian laws that require women to wear the hijab and she died in police custody.

While people have spoken about conditions in Evin after they have been released, it is rare to get details of inmates’ lives while they are still inside.

What we have heard reveals not only brutality, but a place of complex contrasts where the prisoners continue to campaign for women’s rights and defiantly challenge restrictions imposed on them. There are surprising moments too – one inmate, occasionally allowed time alone with her husband, has even got pregnant.

Nasim – who loves rap music and make-up – was taken into custody in April 2023 after joining protests with her friends, one of whom was killed in the government crackdown. She survived interrogations “by thinking about those who died on the street”. People who saw Nasim when she came out of solitary confinement have described cuts and bruises on her body and how she was tortured to make false confessions.

Rezvaneh was also arrested following the protests, along with her husband, in 2023. They both ended up in Evin, which has separate sections for men and women. Her interrogators said they would kill her husband and “hit him so much that he would turn black like coal, and purple like an aubergine”.

After solitary confinement, interrogations and humiliation, Nasim was moved to the women’s wing, that houses about 70 people, including Rezvaneh, most of whom were arrested on political charges.

It is where the British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcilffe, who was allowed to return to the UK in 2022, spent nearly four years of her sentence.

Most of the women there have been sentenced because of their activism, for offences including spreading propaganda, drawing arms against the regime, and endangering national security.

They live in four crowded cells with up to 20 people in each one and bunk beds stacked three- high.

Living together in cramped quarters often causes friction, and sometimes fights – both physical and verbal – break out. But the women also forge tight bonds.

In winter, “everyone is freezing” and the women “walk around with hot water bottles” to stay warm. In summer, they swelter in the heat.

There is a small kitchen area with a couple of hobs where – if they have enough money to buy food from the prison shop – they can cook for themselves to supplement the basic prison meals that are brought to their cells.

A dark, dirty area at the end of a corridor serves as a place to smoke. A small cemented yard with a little area for plants and a volleyball net provides a bit of outside space.

They can wear their own clothes and are free to move around their living quarters which have two bathrooms. Every evening, they queue to use the toilet and brush their teeth.

It was here, after she had been in prison for about four months, that Rezvaneh found out she was pregnant.

She had struggled with infertility for years and had given up on ever having a baby. But according to Evin’s rules, she and her husband – who is still a prisoner in the men’s wing – were occasionally allowed to meet in private and, on one of these occasions, she conceived.

When she realised she was pregnant she “cried for several days”.

She found “the worst thing was the mental pressure and tensions inside the prison”. Finding a quiet place in the crowded cells, where people spend most of their days sitting on their beds, was a constant challenge.

The prison food left her craving apple juice, bread, and meat, which were hard to get hold of. When she could get some meat from the prison shop it was at least twice the price of meat on the outside.

The prison eventually allowed her to have an ultrasound scan at four months, and doctors told her she was having a girl.

As she listened to “each heartbeat the sense of hope became stronger”. But she was afraid that the conditions in prison would endanger the baby’s health. Rezvaneh was not just concerned about her diet – she has epilepsy and needed to avoid stress. Prison doctors told her she had a high risk of miscarriage.

Vida, a journalist, loves to paint. She uses bedsheets for canvases and paints portraits of the other women.

One, which was smuggled out of Evin, is of Kurdish prisoner Pakhshan Azizi who travelled to Kurdish areas of Iraq and Syria to help victims of the Islamic State group. Pakhshan has been sentenced to death, following charges of using arms to fight the Iranian regime, and there is great concern this sentence could be carried out soon.

Vida has been warned not to draw anything with a hidden meaning. On one of the walls in the yard she painted crumbling bricks with a green forest behind them. The authorities sprayed over it.

In a corridor she painted a picture of an Iranian cheetah running. Some of the women “kept saying how much good energy they got from it”. But one night the authorities “went and painted over it” and restricted Vida’s access to painting supplies.

One of her murals has been left intact though – huge, blue ocean waves on the walls of the corridor where the women go to smoke.

Getting medical care has been a constant battle for the women. One of the inmates, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, has life-threatening heart and lung conditions.

But in prison she has had to fight long and hard for access to a doctor. Relatives said that officials repeatedly blocked treatment because she refused to wear a headscarf to a medical appointment. The authorities only relented after fellow prisoners went on hunger strike for two weeks. Narges was released for 21 days at the start of December on medical grounds.

Behind bars, she and the others have carried out protests, pushing the boundaries and continuing to fight for their rights. Although the law requires them to wear headscarves, many refuse. And after a long fight with the authorities, the women were allowed curtains around the beds so they could have some privacy, out of view of CCTV cameras.

One of the toughest things for the women is waiting to hear their sentences. Nasim’s interrogators had threatened her with the death penalty and she had to wait nearly 500 days to find out her fate.

She found solace in her fellow prisoners – who she has described as sisters who give her life and act as “a balm on the wounds” of her wings.

Every morning, one of her friends pulls aside the bed curtain and makes her get up for breakfast.

“Each day we think of something to do, so by the end of the day we can tell ourselves, ‘We lived today,'” one of our sources explains.

Others spend their time reading poetry, singing, playing homemade card games and watching TV – there are two televisions where they can watch Iranian channels showing drama, documentaries and football.

It is these small things that kept Nasim going while she waited for her sentence, under the constant threat of execution. When the sentence finally came, she was given six years in prison, 74 lashes and 20 years in exile in a small town far from Tehran. She had been charged with distributing propaganda and drawing arms against the Islamic Republic.

Despite the severity of the sentence, Nasim felt she could breathe again, and embrace the life she thought she had lost.

Three other women in the wing have been sentenced to death for drawing arms against the regime or affiliation to armed groups. However one of them has had her sentence overturned.

More than 800 people were executed in Iran last year – the highest number in eight years, according to Amnesty International. Most were for crimes involving violence and drugs. A handful were women.

So every Tuesday, the women protest against executions, chanting in the prison yard, refusing to move all night and staging hunger strikes. The campaign has spread through jails across Iran, gaining international support. On the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death the women in Evin burned headscarves.

There have been repercussions – sometimes the guards raid their cells and women have been beaten and injured. They can also be taken for further interrogations, put back in solitary confinement or have phone calls and visits blocked. Most of the guards are women and “sometimes they are kind, sometimes they are cruel and hard-hearted, depending on what orders they receive from a higher authority”, says one of our sources.

The Iranian government routinely denies allegations of human rights violations, saying conditions inside Evin prison meet all necessary standards and prisoners are not mistreated.

As Rezvaneh’s due date approached, the prison authorities allowed her to temporarily leave prison for the birth. In October, she had a baby girl.

But her joy and relief at the safe arrival of her daughter is mingled with fear, sadness and anger. Her husband was not allowed out of prison with her, although she has been able to take their daughter to visit him in Evin.

And because of the stress, Rezvaneh has struggled to produce breastmilk. She is expecting to be recalled to Evin prison soon with her baby daughter to serve the rest of her five-year sentence – if she’s not granted an early release, that could be nearly four years.

Babies are usually allowed to stay with their mothers in jail until the age of two. After that they are often sent to a close relative, or if that is not possible, they might be placed in a children’s home.

But rather than stop the inmates, one prisoner has said the challenges they face have made her “braver and stronger,” supporting their belief that “the future is clear: to fight, even in prison”.

BBC 100 Women names 100 inspiring and influential women around the world every year. Follow BBC 100 Women on Instagram, external and Facebook, external. Join the conversation using #BBC100Women.

You can watch the BBC 100 Women on the BBC World Service YouTube channel.

The first trailer has been released for James Gunn’s hotly awaited reboot of Superman, a film that Hollywood is hoping will come to its rescue as one of the biggest releases of 2025.

David Corenswet plays the Man of Steel in the movie that’s intended to kick-start a new era for DC Studios, which writer-director Gunn and producer Peter Safran took over in 2022.

The trailer starts with Superman crashing to Earth in an icy landscape before being revived by Krypto the Superdog, who looks set to become a fan favourite.

The two-minute trailer also unveiled Rachel Brosnahan as the latest Lois Lane and British actor Nicholas Hoult as a bald and menacing Lex Luthor.

Corenswet, 31, who has previously appeared in TV series The Politician, Hollywood and We Own This City, is the fourth person to play the role in a major Superman movie, and the first for a decade.

Henry Cavill, who appeared in 2013’s Man of Steel and its spin-offs, announced in 2022 that he would return to the role – but Gunn and Safran decided to replace him after they took over DC.

However, many fans felt Cavill was unfairly treated and in recent days have been airing their views on social media that he should be allowed to finish his Superman saga.

Corenswet has taken ownership of the cape, though, and is seen in the trailer saving a girl from an explosion, smashing out of a glass cabinet and kissing Lois in mid-air.

He also has a rock hurled at his head by a member of an angry crowd as he walks into a Stagg Industries building, and his Clark Kent alter-ego is seen in the Daily Planet newspaper office and with Pa Kent (played by Pruitt Taylor Vince) in rural Kansas.

The trailer also unveils other characters including Guy Gardner/Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Rex Mason/Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Michael Holt/Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi).

It received a broadly enthusiastic reaction on social media after being released. The film will reach cinemas on 11 July 2025.

It comes at a key moment for Hollywood, which is trying to retain excitement around blockbuster films after a number of box office misfires and the onset of “superhero fatigue”.

DC has struggled to find major hits in recent years, with films like Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman 1984 and Joker: Folie à Deux – part of the wider DC stable – each earning less than $60m (£48m) at the North American box office.

Elswehere in Hollywood, Sony’s latest phase of superhero films ended with a flop when Kraven the Hunter opened with takings of just $11m (£9m) last weekend.

Kraven the Hunter was the last in Sony’s series related to the Spider-Man universe – alongside the Venom franchise, which performed relatively well, and Morbius and Madame Web, which did not.

Meanwhile, Deadpool & Wolverine was a big success for Marvel this summer and the studio remains the biggest hitter, but that was its only release this year. It is due to kick off its sixth phase with a Fantastic Four reboot in 2025.

David A Gross, who writes the FranchiseRe box office newsletter, said a result like Kraven’s was “the new normal for superhero films” because “nothing is working outside of well established stories”.

Four superhero films were released in 2024 and there will be another four in 2025 – down from seven before the pandemic, he said.

“The Superman story has the history and pedigree to be a hit in today’s market,” he told BBC News. “It’s a ‘classic’ and will be taken seriously by both superhero fanatics and broader fans.

“James Gunn knows what he’s doing and gives the project total credibility. With this kind of story, casting is changeable, and in this case the new cast is a plus – it’s part of updating the story.

“Nothing is a given now for the superhero genre, but Superman should do very well, and these films are strong around the world.”

The film is expected to focus on its titular character balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing.

Gunn has said it starts “right in the middle of the action”, with Superman already in existence, and “takes place over a short amount of time”.

He has also said there’s “plenty of humor in it” – although less than in some of his previous films like Suicide Squad or Guardians of the Galaxy.

“People like Rachel are so funny and David is very [funny as well], so there’s humour in it,” he said.

“But it’s trying to create something that is grounded, but also it’s an incredibly fanciful world, it’s fantasy, it’s taking from other things like Game of Thrones, where it’s this universe where superheroes actually exist. What are they like? There’s a magic there that’s undeniable.”

Corenswet’s Superman is seen wearing the hero’s famous red trunks – but Gunn said he was “on the no-trunks team for a long time” before filming started, until the star convinced him otherwise.

“One of the things David said is that Superman wants kids to not be afraid of him. He’s an alien. He’s got these incredible powers. He shoots beams out of his eyes, can blow the truck over.

“He’s this incredibly powerful, could be considered scary individual and he wants people to like him. He wants to be a symbol of hope and positivity.

“So he dresses like a professional wrestler, he dresses in a way that makes people unafraid of him. That shows that. And I was like, that really clicked in for me.”

The People’s Republic of China has a “magic weapon”, according to its founding leader Mao Zedong and its current president Xi Jinping.

It is called the United Front Work Department – and it is raising as much alarm in the West as Beijing’s growing military arsenal.

Yang Tengbo, a prominent businessman who has been linked to Prince Andrew, is the latest overseas Chinese citizen to be scrutinised – and sanctioned – for his links to the UFWD.

The existence of the department is far from a secret. A decades-old and well-documented arm of the Chinese Communist Party, it has been mired in controversy before. Investigators from the US to Australia have cited the UFWD in multiple espionage cases, often accusing Beijing of using it for foreign interference.

Beijing has denied all espionage allegations, calling them ludicrous.

So what is the UFWD and what does it do?

The United Front – originally referring to a broad communist alliance – was once hailed by Mao as the key to the Communist Party’s triumph in the decades-long Chinese Civil War.

After the war ended in 1949 and the party began ruling China, United Front activities took a backseat to other priorities. But in the last decade under Xi, the United Front has seen a renaissance of sorts.

Xi’s version of the United Front is broadly consistent with earlier incarnations: to “build the broadest possible coalition with all social forces that are relevant”, according to Mareike Ohlberg, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.

On the face of it, the UFWD is not shadowy – it even has a website and reports many of its activities on it. But the extent of its work – and its reach – is less clear.

While a large part of that work is domestic, Dr Ohlberg said, “a key target that has been defined for United Front work is overseas Chinese”.

Today, the UFWD seeks to influence public discussions about sensitive issues ranging from Taiwan – which China claims as its territory – to the suppression of ethnic minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang.

It also tries to shape narratives about China in foreign media, target Chinese government critics abroad and co-opt influential overseas Chinese figures.

“United Front work can include espionage but [it] is broader than espionage,” Audrye Wong, assistant professor of politics at the University of Southern California, tells the BBC.

“Beyond the act of acquiring covert information from a foreign government, United Front activities centre on the broader mobilisation of overseas Chinese,” she said, adding that China is “unique in the scale and scope” of such influence activities.

China has always had the ambition for such influence, but its rise in recent decades has given Beijing the ability to exercise it.

Since Xi became president in 2012, he has been especially proactive in crafting China’s message to the world, enouraging a confrontational “wolf warrior” approach to diplomacy and urging his country’s diaspora to “tell China’s story well”.

The UFWD operates through various overseas Chinese community organisations, which have vigorously defended the Communist Party beyond its shores. They have censored anti-CCP artwork and protested at the activities of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. The UFWD has also been linked to threats against members of persecuted minorities abroad, such as Tibetans and Uyghurs.

But much of the UFWD’s work overlaps with other party agencies, operating under what observers have described as “plausible deniability”.

It is this murkiness that is causing so much suspicion and apprehension about the UFWD.

When Yang appealed against his ban, judges agreed with the then secretary of state’s report that Yang “represented a risk to national security” – citing the fact that he downplayed his ties with the UFWD as one of the reasons that led them to that conclusion.

Yang, however, maintains that he has not done anything unlawful and that the spy allegations are “entirely untrue”.

Cases like Yang’s are becoming increasingly common. In 2022, British Chinese lawyer Christine Lee was accused by the MI5 of acting through the UFWD to cultivate relationships with influential people in the UK. The following year, Liang Litang, a US citizen who ran a Chinese restaurant in Boston, was indicted for providing information about Chinese dissidents in the area to his contacts in the UFWD.

And in September, Linda Sun, a former aide in the New York governor’s office, was charged with using her position to serve Chinese government interests – receiving benefits, including travel, in return. According to Chinese state media reports, she had met a top UFWD official in 2017, who told her to “be an ambassador of Sino-American friendship”.

It is not uncommon for prominent and successful Chinese people to be associated with the party, whose approval they often need, especially in the business world.

But where is the line between peddling influence and espionage?

“The boundary between influence and espionage is blurry” when it comes to Beijing’s operations, said Ho-fung Hung, a politics professor at Johns Hopkins University.

This ambiguity has intensified after China passed a law in 2017 mandating Chinese nationals and companies to co-operate with intelligence probes, including sharing information with the Chinese government – a move that Dr Hung said “effectively turns everyone into potential spies”.

The Ministry of State Security has released dramatic propaganda videos warning the public that foreign spies are everywhere and “they are cunning and sneaky “.

Some students who were sent on special trips abroad were told by their universities to limit contact with foreigners and were asked for a report of their activities on their return.

And yet Xi is keen to promote China to the world. So he has tasked a trusted arm of the party to project strength abroad.

And that is becoming a challenge for Western powers – how do they balance doing business with the world’s second-largest economy alongside serious security concerns?

Genuine fears over China’s overseas influence are playing into more hawkish sentiments in the West, often leaving governments in a dilemma.

Some, like Australia, have tried to protect themselves with fresh foreign interference laws that criminalise individuals deemed to be meddling in domestic affairs. In 2020, the US imposed visa restrictions on people seen as active in UFWD activities.

An irked Beijing has warned that such laws – and the prosecutions they have spurred – hinder bilateral relations.

“The so-called allegations of Chinese espionage are utterly absurd,” a foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters on Tuesday in response to a question about Yang. “The development of China-UK relations serves the common interests of both countries.”

Some experts say that the long arm of China’s United Front is indeed concerning.

“Western governments now need to be less naive about China’s United Front work and take it as a serious threat not only to national security but also to the safety and freedom of many ethnic Chinese citizens,” Dr Hung says.

But, he adds, “governments also need to be vigilant against anti-Chinese racism and work hard to build trust and co-operation with ethnic Chinese communities in countering the threat together.”

Last December, Di Sanh Duong, a Vietnam-born ethnic Chinese community leader in Australia, was convicted of planning foreign interference for trying to cosy up to an Australian minister. Prosecutors argued that he was an “ideal target” for the UFWD because he had run for office in the 1990s and boasted ties with Chinese officials.

Duong’s trial had centred around what he meant when he said the inclusion of the minister at a charity event would be beneficial to “us Chinese” – did he mean the Chinese community in Australia, or mainland China?

In the end, Duong’s conviction – and a prison sentence – raised serious concerns that such broad anti-espionage laws and prosecutions can easily become weapons for targeting ethnic Chinese people.

“It’s important to remember that not everyone who is ethnically Chinese is a supporter of the Chinese Communist Party. And not everyone who is involved in these diaspora organisations is driven by fervent loyalty to China,” Dr Wong says.

“Overly aggressive policies based on racial profiling will only legitimise the Chinese government’s propaganda that ethnic Chinese are not welcome and end up pushing diaspora communities further into Beijing’s arms.”

Nearly three decades after being nominated for an Oscar, British actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste is back in the awards race thanks to a tremendous performance in director Mike Leigh’s new drama, Hard Truths.

The 57-year-old jokes she feels “older and wider” (rather than wiser) this time around – a line she credits to co-star Michele Austin, who plays her on-screen sister.

But waistlines aside, her reunion with Leigh, whom she first worked with on 1996’s Secrets & Lies, has prompted some of the most positive reviews of her career.

Hard Truths centres on Pansy, a woman who is constantly grumpy and miserable, and the impact her unspoken depression has on those around her.

It would be unfair to call the film a comeback for Jean-Baptiste, because she has been working tirelessly in the intervening years. But her second collaboration with Leigh has led to renewed attention on the film awards circuit.

“It’s kind of a full circle moment, rather than a comeback,” she tells BBC News.

“It’s very interesting, because the first time, I was not aware at all that we were even an Oscar race. You’ve got to remember, in 1996, there was still a huge independent film presence in the United States.

“At that time, we weren’t that aware of the whole Oscar thing. It was something that happened over there,” she says, gesturing far away, “with really big stars. So it really was not on our radar.”

Having won the top prize at Cannes, it was only when Secrets & Lies played at the New York Film Festival four months later that Jean-Baptiste became more aware of the awards buzz. “I hadn’t even heard of the Golden Globes at that point,” she recalls.

“We were just talking about the film, doing loads of interviews, we were just knackered from all the plane rides, so there was a naivety to it the first time.

“Now we have the internet and it’s become more of an aggressive pursuit of those awards. The campaigning process has changed quite a lot. Or maybe it hasn’t and we just weren’t aware of it back then.”

Leigh and Jean-Baptiste have “kept in touch over the years”, she explains – which ultimately led to their second project together.

Hard Truths has been praised for its hard-hitting but nuanced depiction of depression and complex family dynamics.

There is humour in many of the scenes as Pansy starts arguments with pretty much everyone she encounters, from her closest relatives to her dentist. The man in the car park who asks if she’s leaving gets it with both barrels.

But there is something deeper going on. Although the word “depression” isn’t mentioned in the film, it’s clear Pansy is struggling.

“Yeah, it’s not spoken,” Jean-Baptiste says. “And the interesting thing about that is the whole family, everyone that she comes into contact with, other than her sister, just sort of gets on with it.

“It’s under the surface. ‘Oh, it’s just Pansy.’ And so many people live like that, where you have somebody that’s really difficult, and nobody says to them, ‘Man, what is it? What’s really going on?’ You just sort of avoid them.”

On paper, it might sound like fun for an actor to play such a juicy, bad-tempered character. But Jean-Baptiste’s performance reveals something much more complex.

“People have asked if it was cathartic, the chance to just spew. But no, it wasn’t like that,” she says. “I felt the very real pain, anxiety and fear. There was not a lot of enjoyment to be had in that.

“And also, Pansy comes from a generation where you’re taught to just get on with things. It’s like the pre-Oprah generation, self-help – it’s before all that. You just went, ‘I feel rubbish, but I’ve got to do the laundry.’ You get up and you get on with it.”

In her review of Hard Truths, Carla Hay of Culture Mix said Jean-Baptiste “gives a fierce and complex performance”, describing it as “a raw and realistic portrayal of how toxic anger and untreated mental illness can affect a family”.

“Even at its funniest, Hard Truths finds Marianne Jean-Baptiste channelling an anger that feels excruciatingly real,” wrote Slant’s Cole Kronman.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Jon Frosch noted that Leigh “pushes the bounds of our empathy and asks us to look, really look, at someone from whom we’d surely avert our gaze if we had the misfortune of crossing her path in real life”.

Leigh famously spends several months rehearsing, and crafts his script based on improvisation sessions with the actors.

“Basically, the process is to create a character from scratch,” Jean-Baptiste explains. “Their first memory, their education, house they grew up in, family members, neighbours, where the local park was. Minute detail.”

The actors are then introduced to one another to build their characters’ relationships. “We do all sorts of exercises to establish the family routines and the traditions. We do improvisations based on, ‘What’s Sunday dinner like?'”

By the time shooting begins, the script is firmly in place. “Nothing is ever improvised on camera,” she explains. “So we rehearse it and rehearse it.”

Jean-Baptiste is speaking to BBC News the morning after the British Independent Film Awards, where she won best lead performance, one of several early accolades she has picked up.

If she is ultimately shortlisted by Hollywood’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on 17 January, Jean-Baptiste could become the first black British woman to receive two Oscar nominations for acting.

Coincidentally, Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo is also a contender for best actress – meaning she could match that record, after also being nominated in 2020.

“I guess it’s a sign of progress, and I think it’s all great,” Jean-Baptiste reflects. “It’s recognition for a job well done, I guess.”

Four black actresses from the US have previously scored two Academy nominations – Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Bassett, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer.

Jean-Baptiste agrees strides have been made on diversity nearly a decade on from the OscarsSoWhite movement, but notes that the real issue is whether the work is available in the first place.

“I think [awards bodies] are trying. It’s always going to come back down to opportunity, though,” she says.

“If the films aren’t being made that feature black women [or] Asian women in the lead role, then they don’t even stand a chance of being nominated.

“So we always have to come back to the opportunities in the first place, the work being made, the stories being told.”

Notably, Jean-Baptiste now lives in Los Angeles – a place many British actors have moved to for the sake of their careers.

“Well, I was being offered work out there, so it made sense actually, because in the end I left to do a job that would require me to be there for an extended amount of time,” she explains, referring to her 2000s TV police drama Without A Trace.

“Because that show went on for seven years. I’d been flying back and forth for the first year or two of the show, and then it was like, you know what, this is a lot. It’s a long flight just for a weekend.”

When she’s back in the UK, she relishes the chance to catch up on British theatre and read books on the London Underground (“You have to drive in LA, so it’s books on tape”).

For now, though, her focus is on Hard Truths, which will be released in the UK on 31 January. Jean-Baptiste hopes viewers ultimately leave the film with “a bit more compassion for people, difficult people”.

“Not to avoid them, necessarily, but just sort of ask your aunt what’s going on, and if there’s something you can do to help. Don’t assume you’re going to be berated for doing it.”

Older and wider, we all begrudgingly are. But Marianne Jean-Baptiste is clearly quite a lot wiser, too.

Lord Mandelson is expected to be named as the UK’s next ambassador to the US.

The Labour grandee, who served in multiple ministerial roles under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before taking up a life peerage in the Lords, was considered to be one of the frontrunners for the position.

He will replace Dame Karen Pierce, whose term in Washington DC is due to end in early 2025.

An architect of New Labour, Lord Mandelson was seen as a key adviser to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in the run-up to the 2024 election.

During that election, he was among the hosts of the How To Win An Election podcast for the Times, while also serving as a trustee of the Design Museum and chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University.

His name was linked to the chancellorship of the University of Oxford, where he once studied, but it ultimately went to former Conservative leader Lord William Hague.

Sir David Manning, who served as the UK’s ambassador to the US between 2003 and 2007, told BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight programme that Lord Mandelson was a “very articulate, highly intelligent, extremely experienced operator”.

However, he cautioned that the role would see him coming up against “all sorts of issues that will be contentious and difficult” including climate change, dealing with China and the situation in the Middle East.

Lord Mandelson, 71, told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme in November that nobody had actually spoken to him about the ambassador post.

But he said he was “more in favour of a new relationship rather than a special one” with the US, and “would be very interested indeed in giving advice about trade to whoever is appointed”.

His appointment comes ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on 20 January.

Trump has pledged to impose wide-ranging tariffs on his first day in office, which experts say could cost the UK £22bn.

Sir Keir said on Thursday the UK would “have to make sure that we avoid tariffs” when asked about Trump’s comments, and reiterated that he wanted to improve trade with Washington.

A government source said: “The fact the prime minister has chosen to make a political appointment and sent Lord Mandelson to Washington shows just how importantly we see our relationship with the Trump administration.

“We’re sending someone close to the prime minister with unrivalled political and policy experience, particularly on the crucial issue of trade. He’s the ideal candidate to represent the UK’s economic and security interests in the USA.”

Both the White House and Trump campaign were notified of the appointment in advance.

Speaking to the News Agents podcast in November, Lord Mandelson said the new Trump presidency was going to have a profound impact on the security and economic stability of the rest of world.

“It’s absolutely essential that we establish a relationship with President Trump that enables us not only to understand and interpret what he’s doing but to influence it”, he said.

He added that the Labour government should try to “reconnect” with Trump’s ally and tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been critical of Sir Keir’s government and has been appointed head of new advisory team the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).

Lord Mandelson was the Labour MP for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004, during which time he served as Northern Ireland secretary and business secretary under Blair. He stood down as an MP in 2004 to become a European Commissioner.

He also resigned twice as a minister – once for failing to declare a home loan from a cabinet colleague, and a second time over accusations of using his position to influence a passport application.

It is not unusual for couples to argue over naming their baby, but it rarely ends up in court.

But a couple from India’s southern state of Karnataka found themselves needing the courts to intervene following a three year fight over their son’s name.

In fact, the fight had got so nasty the couple were seeking a divorce.

It all began back in 2021, when the woman – who has not been named – gave birth to a boy and went to her parents’ home for a few weeks. It is common for women in India to move to their parents’ house after having a child to rest and recover.

Normally, the husband would come to bring both the mother and the baby back to their home.

But when the then-21-year-old woman refused to accept the name her husband had chosen for their son, he was upset – and never went to bring her back.

Instead, she chose the name Adi for her child – made up of the first letter of her name, and part of her husband’s, according to Hunsur’s assistant public prosecutor Sowmya MN.

Months turned into years and the woman, who was still at her parents’ house, approached the local court in Hunsur town of the state’s Mysuru district seeking financial support from her husband.

Her lawyer MR Harish told BBC Hindi that the the dispute had now escalated to the point where she was seeking a divorce.

“She wanted maintenance money as she is a home-maker,” he said.

The case was initially filed in a local court but later transferred to the People’s court, also known as the Lok Adalat, which handle cases which can be solved through mediation.

Despite multiple suggestions from judges, the couple remained firm – until they finally agreed on a name chosen by the court.

The child is now named Aryavardhana, Ms Sowmya says, which means “of nobility”.

The couple then exchanged garlands, a symbol of acceptance as per Indian tradition, and apparently left happily to continue their marriage.

This is not the only time in recent years that an Indian court has had to get involved when it comes to naming a child.

Last September, a child in Kerala was refused entry to school after it was revealed her birth certificate was blank.

Her mother approached the court explaining she had tried to get the now four-year-old registered, but officials refused to complete the form because the father – from whom she was separated – was not present.

In its order, the high court directed the birth registration office to accept the name suggested by the mother and add the father’s name.

An American citizen has pleaded guilty to helping run what has been described as the first known secret police station in the US on behalf of the Chinese government.

Prosecutors say Chen Jinping and his co-defendent Lu Jianwang opened and operated the station in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighbourhood in early 2022 on behalf of China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS).

At least 100 such stations have been reported worldwide across 53 countries, with rights groups accusing China of using the outposts to threaten and monitor Chinese nationals abroad.

But China has denied that they are police stations, saying they are “service stations” providing administrative services to nationals overseas.

The outpost, which occupied an entire floor above a ramen stall, did provide basic services like renewing Chinese citizens’ driver licenses, but it also helped Beijing identify pro-democracy activists living in the US, say federal authorities.

Matthew Olsen, an assistant attorney general in the US Department of Justice, called the attempt to operate the undeclared overseas police station “a clear affront to American sovereignty and danger to our community that will not be tolerated”.

The station was closed in the autumn of 2022 after the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched an investigation.

But Chen and Lu destroyed text messages they exchanged with an MPS official when they learned of the probe, prosecutors said.

The men, who are both American citizens, were arrested in April last year.

On Wednesday, Chen, 60, pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an agent for China, and faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced next year.

Chen’s acknowledgement of guilt is a “stark reminder of insidious efforts taken by the [Chinese] government to threaten, harass, and intimidate those who speak against their Communist Party,” Robert Wells, an executive assistant director of the FBI’s National Security Branch said in a statement.

Lu, 59, has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. Prosecutors have accused him of harassing a purported Chinese fugitive to return to China and for helping to locate a pro-democracy activist in California on behalf of the Communist Party.

At the time of Chen’s arrest, authorities said it marked the first time the US has brought criminal charges in relation to such police outposts.

Mr Olsen said US authorities would “continue to pursue anyone who attempts to aid China’s efforts to extend their repressive reach into the United States”.

In September, Linda Sun, a former aide in the New York governor’s office, was charged with using her position to serve Chinese government interests. She was said to have received benefits, including travel, in return.

Last year, 34 officers from the MPS were also charged with using fake social media accounts to harass Chinese dissidents in the US and spread official Chinese government propaganda.

A Labour minister has been named in an investigation into claims her family embezzled up to £3.9bn (Tk 590 billion) from infrastructure projects in Bangladesh.

Tulip Siddiq, 42, who as the Treasury’s Economic Secretary is responsible for tackling corruption in UK financial markets, is alleged to have brokered a deal with Russia in 2013 that overinflated the price of a new nuclear power plant in Bangladesh.

The allegation is part of a wider investigation by Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) into Siddiq’s aunt, Sheikh Hasina, who was deposed as prime minister of the country in August.

A source close to Siddiq said these were “trumped up charges”.

The source also said the allegations were “completely politically motivated” and designed to damage her aunt.

Conservative shadow home office minister Matt Vickers said: “The fact Labour’s anti-corruption minister is reportedly embroiled in a corruption case is the latest stain on Keir Starmer’s judgement.

“It is high time she came clean. The British public deserve a government that is focused on their priorities, not distracted by yet another scandal.”

Downing Street said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had confidence in Siddiq, and she will continue her responsibility as the minister overseeing anti-corruption efforts.

Siddiq has “denied any involvement in the claims” accusing her of involvement in embezzlement, according to the prime minister’s official spokesman.

But she has recused herself – or stepped back – from any political decisions involving Bangladesh, the spokesman added.

The investigation is based on a series of allegations made by Bobby Hajjaj, a senior political opponent of Hasina.

The BBC understands that Siddiq has not had any contact with the ACC as part of the investigation.

The ACC is also investigating several of Hasina’s family members, including Siddiq’s mother Sheikh Rehana Siddiq, and senior officials from her government.

Hasina, who was in charge of Bangladesh for more than 20 years, was seen as an autocrat whose government ruthlessly clamped down on dissent.

Since fleeing the country Hasina has been accused of multiple crimes by the new Bangladeshi government.

Hasina is wanted by Bangladesh’s International Criminal Tribunal (ICT) for her alleged involvements in “crimes against humanity” that took place during the demonstrations, in which hundreds were killed.

Arrest warrants have also been issued for 45 others, including former government ministers who also fled the country.

Syed Faruk, who runs the UK branch of Hasina’s Awami League party, said the claims were “fabricated”.

Siddiq was elected MP for Hampstead and Highgate in 2015, the north London constituency neighbouring Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

Corruption allegations and convictions against top leaders of ousted governments are not new in Bangladesh.

Hasina’s main predecessor as prime minister, Khaleda Zia faced similar charges, which she also dismissed as politically motivated. As did ex-president Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who seized power as head of the army during a bloodless coup in 1982.

The Bangladeshi judiciary’s independence has long been questioned.

Government changes often bring judicial reshuffles, with ruling parties regularly accused of targeting political opponents.

Court documents seen by the BBC show Hajjaj has accused Siddiq of mediating and coordinating meetings for the Bangladeshi officials with the Russian government to build the £10bn Rooppur Power Plant Project.

It is claimed that the deal inflated the price of the plant by £1bn, according to the documents – 30% of which was allegedly distributed to Siddiq and other family members via a complex network of banks and overseas companies.

In total, Hajjaj alleges £3.9bn was siphoned out of the project by Hasina’s family and minister.

Footage from 2013 appears to show Siddiq attended the deal’s signing by Hasina and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, recorded by the Associated Press.

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A union representing more than 11,000 Starbucks baristas in the US says its members will hold a five-day strike starting on Friday morning, in a dispute over pay and working conditions.

Workers United says the walkouts will happen in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle, with strike action set to spread each day and reach hundreds of stores by Christmas Eve unless a deal is reached.

It follows the union calling for the coffee shop giant to raise wages and staffing, as well as implement better schedules for its workers.

“We are ready to continue negotiations to reach agreements. We need the union to return to the table,” a Starbucks spokesperson said in response to the strike announcement.

The company also highlighted that it offers average pay of over $18 (£14.40) an hour, as well as “best-in-class benefits.”

“Taken together they are worth an average of $30 per hour for baristas who work at least 20 hours per week,” it said.

Workers United says it represents workers at more than 500 stores across 45 US states.

“It’s a last resort, but Starbucks has broken its promise to thousands of baristas and left us with no choice,” said Fatemeh Alhadjaboodi, a Starbucks barista from Texas said in a statement sent to the BBC by the union.

Workers United has highlighted what it sees as an unfair pay disparity between its members and senior Starbucks bosses, including chief executive Brian Niccol.

His annual base pay is $1.6m. He could also get a performance-related bonus of as much as $7.2m and up to $23m a year of Starbucks shares.

Starbucks has previously defended the plan, saying that Mr Niccol was “one of the most effective leaders in our industry” and that his compensation was “tied directly to the company’s performance and the shared success of all our stakeholders”.

Mr Niccol joined the company in September after his predecessor Laxman Narasimhan stepped down less than two years in the role.

The world’s biggest coffee shop chain has seen flagging sales as it grappled with a backlash to price increases and boycotts sparked by the Israel-Gaza war.

The strike at Starbucks comes as one of the most powerful labour unions in the US is staging a protest against Amazon, aiming to put pressure on the technology giant as it rushes out packages in the final run-up to Christmas.

The Teamsters union said Amazon delivery drivers at seven facilities in the US had walked off the job on Thursday, after the company refused to negotiate with the union about a labour contract.

Syria’s rebel leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has dismissed the online controversy over videos showing him gesturing to a young woman to cover her hair before he posed for a photo with her last week.

The incident sparked criticism from both liberal and conservative commentators amid intense speculation about the county’s future direction after rebels swept to power.

Liberals saw the request from the head of the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as a sign that he might seek to enforce an Islamic system in Syria after leading the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, while hardline conservatives criticised him for consenting to be photographed with the woman in the first place.

“I did not force her. But it’s my personal freedom. I want photos taken for me the way that suits me,” Sharaa said in an interview with the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen.

The woman, Lea Kheirallah, has also said that she was not bothered by the request.

She said he had asked in “gentle and fatherly way”, and that she thought “the leader has the right to be presented in the way he sees fit”.

However, the incident demonstrated some of the difficulties any future leader of Syria might have in appealing to and uniting such a religiously diverse country.

Sunni Muslims make up the majority of the population, with the remainder split between Christians, Alawites, Druze and Ismailis.

There is also a wide range of views among the various political and armed groups who were opposed to Assad, with some wanting a secular democracy and others wanting governance according to Islamic law.

HTS, a former al-Qaeda affiliate, initially imposed strict behaviour and dress codes rules when it seized control of the former rebel stronghold of Idlib province in 2017. However, it revoked those rules in recent years in response to public criticism.

The Quran, Islam’s holy book, tells Muslims – men and women – to dress modestly.

Male modesty has been interpreted to be covering the area from the navel to the knee – and for women it is generally seen as covering everything except their face, hands and feet when in the presence of men they are not related or married to.

Lea Kheirallah asked to take a photo with Sharaa – who was previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani – when he toured the Mezzeh area of Damascus on 10 December.

Before agreeing, Sharaa gestured for her to cover her hair and she complied, raising the hood on her jumper and then standing beside him for the photo.

Many video clips and pictures of the incident were shared on social media, sparking widespread outrage among ordinary users and media commentators.

People with liberal or non-conservative views saw it as a troubling glimpse into Syria’s possible future under HTS, fearing increasingly conservative policies like the requirement for all women to wear a hijab, or headscarf.

France 24’s Arabic channel discussed the incident, with a headline asking if Syria was “heading towards Islamic rule”.

Others were sharper in their condemnation. One Syrian journalist said: “We replaced one dictator with a reactionary dictator.”

On social media, other commentators warned of “ultra-extremists” ascending to power, while others decried the “forcing of a free woman” to adopt a conservative look.

Islamist hardliners on Telegram criticised Sharaa for agreeing to be filmed and photographed next to a young woman in the first place.

Some called Ms Kheirallah a “mutabarijah” – a negative term for women considered immodestly dressed or wearing make-up.

Such hardline figures ranged from clerics to influential commentators whose views are often shared and read by Syria-focused conservative communities online, and are likely to reach HTS supporters and possibly officials.

Most of them appear to be based in Syria, mainly in the former HTS-dominated rebel stronghold of Idlib, with some having previously served in HTS ranks.

They argued that it was religiously impermissible for unrelated men and women to interact closely and accused Sharaa of seeking “vain public attention” and showing “indulgence” in matters contrary to strict religious teachings.

A post on one Telegram channel called Min Idlib (From Idlib) said the HTS leader was “too busy taking selfies with young ladies” to address demands for releasing prisoners from HTS jails in Idlib.

Many of the conservative figures who spoke out against the photo have criticised Sharaa in the past for political as well as religious reasons, and include clerics who have left HTS.

For the uninitiated, sorting one’s rubbish can be a convoluted process in Japan – a country that boasts one of the world’s strictest waste disposal rules.

But in the city of Fukushima, things are about to get even tougher.

Starting in March, the city government will go through bags of rubbish that fall afoul of regulations – such as those which have not been sorted correctly, or which exceed size limits – and in some cases publicly identify their owners.

The new regulations, passed in a municipal meeting on Tuesday, comes amid Japan’s long push to enhance its waste management system.

While many cities in Japan open rubbish bags to inspect them, and some allow for the disclosure of offending businesses, Fukushima is believed to be the first city that plans to disclose the names of both individuals and businesses.

In a statement to the BBC, the Fukushima Waste Reduction Promotion Division said that waste which had not been properly disposed has previously led to scattered rubbish and the proliferation of crows.

“The improper disposal of waste is a major concern as it deteriorates the living environment of local residents,” said the department.

Waste which is not properly sorted also leads to more landfill, the department added, “which imposes a burden on future generations”.

“Therefore, we consider waste sorting to be very important.”

Last year, Fukushima reported over 9,000 cases of non-compliant rubbish.

Currently, instead of collecting rubbish that does not comply with disposal rules, workers usually paste stickers on the bags informing residents of the violation. Residents would then have to take them back inside, re-sort it and hope they get it right the next time collectors come around.

Under Fukushima’s new rules, if the rubbish remains unsorted for a week, city workers can go through it and try to identify the offenders via items such as mail. The violators will be issued a verbal warning, followed by a written advisory, before the last resort: having their names published on the government website.

Amid privacy concerns, Fukushima authorities said that the inspection of the rubbish would be carried out in private.

Japanese cities each have their own guides on how to dispose of rubbish. In Fukushima, rubbish bags have to be placed at collection points every morning by 0830 – but cannot be left out from the night before.

Different types of waste – separated into combustibles, non-combustibles, and recyclables – are collected according to different schedules.

For items that exceed stipulated dimensions, like household appliances and furniture, residents have to make an appointment for them to be collected separately.

Fukushima’s mayor, Hiroshi Kohata, said that the new rules were meant to promote waste reduction and proper disposal methods.

“There is nothing illegal about publicising malicious waste generators who do not abide by the rules and do not follow the city’s guidance and advisory,” the Mainichi quoted authorities as saying.

Rubbish is taken very seriously in Japan, where since the 1990s the government has made it a national goal to shift away from landfills, reduce waste and promote recycling. Local authorities have introduced their own initiatives in line with this goal.

Residents in Kamikatsu, a Japanese town with an ambitious zero-waste goal, proudly sort their rubbish into 45 categories. Kagoshima prefecture has made it mandatory for residents to write their names on their rubbish bags. And last year the city of Chiba piloted an AI assistant to help residents dispose their rubbish properly.

What Haneul remembers most about his time in the North Korean military is the gnawing, continuous hunger. He lost 10kg in his first month of service, due to a diet of cracked corn and mouldy cabbage.

Three months into training, he says almost his entire battalion was severely malnourished and needed to be sent to a recovery centre to gain weight.

When they were later deployed as frontline guards to the border with South Korea, rice replaced corn. But by the time it reached their bowls, much had been siphoned off by rear units, and the remainder had been cut with sand.

Haneul says his unit was among the best-fed, a tactic to stop them defecting to South Korea. But it failed to prevent Haneul.

In 2012, he made a death-defying dash across the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) – the strip of land dividing the North from the South.

His experience and that of other military defectors helps shed light on the condition of thousands of North Korean troops deployed to the frontline in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Pyongyang has reportedly sent around 11,000 troops to help Russian forces reclaim part of its Kursk region taken by Ukraine in a surprise summer offensive.

Earlier this week, Seoul, Washington and Kyiv said said the soldiers had now entered the fight “in significant numbers”, and reported the first casualties, with South Korean officials estimating more than 100 had already been killed and more injured. This figure has not been confirmed.

However, defectors and other military experts have told the BBC these troops should not be underestimated.

According to South Korean intelligence, most belong to the elite Storm Corps unit, and have “high morale”, but “lack an understanding of contemporary warfare”.

Only the taller, sportier men are selected for the Storm Corps, says defector Lee Hyun Seung, who trained North Korea’s special forces in the early 2000s before defecting in 2014.

He taught them martial arts, how to throw knives and make weapons out of cutlery and other kitchen utensils.

But even though the Storm Corps’ training is more advanced than that of regular North Korean units, the soldiers are still underfed and even malnourished.

Online videos, reportedly of the troops in Russia, show younger, “frail” soldiers, Haneul says. They are a stark contrast to Pyongyang’s propaganda videos, where men are seen bursting out of iron chains and smashing blocks of ice with their bare hands.

During his entire time in the army, Haneul says he fired only three bullets in a single live-fire training session.

The closest he came to combat was when a hungry farmer stumbled into the DMZ looking for vegetables. Haneul says he ignored instructions to “shoot any intruders” and let the man go with a warning.

It is difficult to know how much has changed in the decade since Haneul defected, given the scarcity of information from North Korea. It appears that the country’s leader Kim Jong Un has directed much of his limited resources into missiles and nuclear weapons rather than his standing army.

But according to another soldier, Ryu Seonghyun, who defected in 2019, the first three years in the military are “incredibly tough”, even for the special forces. The 28-year-old, who worked as a driver in the air force for seven years, says that during his service, conditions deteriorated and rice gradually disappeared from meals.

“The soldiers are sent into the mountains for days with a small amount of rice, and are told it is part of their survival training.”

Given these troops have been trained to fight in the mountainous Korean Peninsula, the defectors question how well they will adapt to fighting on the flatlands and in the trenches of Kursk.

Crucially, the Storm Corps are not a frontline unit. “Their mission is to infiltrate enemy lines and create chaos deep within enemy territory,” Ryu says.

But, he adds, Kim Jong Un has no alternative to sending special forces, as regular soldiers spend most of their time farming, building or chopping wood.

“Kim Jong Un had to send men who could demonstrate at least a certain level of combat ability, to avoid damaging North Korea’s reputation in Russia.”

The language barrier seems to have created an additional hurdle. On Sunday, Ukraine’s defence intelligence unit said communication issues had resulted in North Korean soldiers accidentally firing on a Russian battalion, killing eight.

With these assessments, it could be easy to dismiss the troops as “cannon fodder” and a sign of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s desperation. But that would be a mistake, the defectors say. Their loyalty to the regime and fighting spirit will count for a lot.

“Most of the soldiers in the Storm Corps come from working-class or farming families, who are highly obedient to the party and will follow orders unquestionably,” says Haneul, whose father and cousin were in the special forces.

Intense, ideological “brainwashing” sessions, held every morning, will further ensure they are mentally ready, Lee adds. He believes the North Korean troops “will become accustomed to the battlefield, learn how to fight the enemy, and find ways to survive”.

Although the soldiers will not have been given a choice over whether to be deployed, Ryu thinks many will have wanted to go. The ambitious will see it as an opportunity to advance their careers, he says.

And given how tough it is to serve in North Korea, some will have relished the chance to experience life abroad for the first time.

“I think they’ll be more willing to fight than Russian troops,” he adds, admitting that in their situation, he too would have wanted to be sent.

Chun In-bum, a former commander of South Korea’s special forces, agrees with the defectors’ appraisals. “Just because they lack food and training, does not mean they are incapable. They will acclimatise quickly. We should not underestimate them.”

While 11,000 troops are unlikely to turn the tide of such an attritional war – it is estimated Russia is suffering more than a thousand casualties a day – experts and officials believe this could be just the first tranche, with Pyongyang potentially able to send up to 60,000 or even 100,000 if they are rotated.

In these numbers, Mr Chun believes they could end up being effective.

Also, Kim Jong Un will be able to shoulder big losses without affecting the stability of his regime, the former soldiers say.

“Those who have been sent will be men without influence or connections – to put it bluntly, those who can be sacrificed without issue,” Haneul says.

He remembers being shocked to learn there were no children of high-ranking parents in his frontline unit: “That’s when I realised we were expendable.”

He does not expect much resistance from the families of the deceased, whose sons, he says, will be honoured as heroes.

“There are countless parents who have lost a child after sending them to the military,” he adds, recalling his second cousin who died. His aunt received a certificate, praising her son for his heroic contribution.

The loyalty of the soldiers and their families could blunt Ukrainian and South Korean hopes that many will simply defect once they enter the fight. Kyiv and Seoul have discussed conducting psychological operations along the frontline to encourage the men to surrender.

But it seems they do not have access to mobile phones. According to Ukrainian intelligence, even Russian soldiers’ phones are seized before they encounter North Korean troops.

So, possible infiltration strategies include broadcasting messages through loudspeakers or using drones to drop leaflets.

Both Ryu and Haneul decided to defect after reading anti-regime propaganda sent across the border from South Korea. But they are doubtful this would work so far from home.

They say it takes a long time to build up the desire and courage to defect.

Furthermore, Haneul suspects the officers will have been ordered to shoot anyone who attempts to flee. He remembers his comrades opening fire as he made his daring sprint across the DMZ.

“Twelve bullets flew just a metre over my head,” he says.

Even capturing the North Korean troops may prove challenging for Ukraine.

In the North, being a prisoner of war is considered extremely shameful and worse than death. Instead, soldiers are taught to take their own lives, by shooting themselves or detonating a grenade.

Ryu recalls a famous military song entitled Save the Last Bullet. “They tell you to save two bullets, one to shoot the enemy and one to shoot yourself.”

Nevertheless, the former special forces trainer Lee is determined to help. He has offered to go to the frontline to communicate directly with the soldiers.

“It’s unlikely they will defect in large numbers, but we have to try. Hearing familiar voices like mine, and others from North Korea, might impact their psychology,” he says.

Haneul just hopes they get home to North Korea. He knows there is a chance some of his relatives are among the troops sent to help Russia.

“I just hope they make it through and return safely.”

The United States government is a day away from running out of money as Congress scrambles to come up with a short-term funding plan.

On Thursday night, a revised spending plan by Republicans that would have averted a government shutdown failed to clear the House.

It needed a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives to pass and failed to reach that requirement. Thirty-eight Republicans broke ranks and voted against the bill, alongside most Democrats.

President-elect Donald Trump had thwarted a previous funding deal that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson had struck with Democrats.

Trump’s denouncement of that bipartisan deal followed heavy criticism of the measure by tech billionaire Elon Musk.

The Trump-approved replacement bill would have tied government funding to a two-year suspension of the federal debt limit, which determines how much the government can borrow to pay its bills. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the chamber, called the proposal “laughable”.

Speaker Johnson must now head back to the drawing board, with just hours left on the clock.

Here are five things to know about the possible government shutdown:

The now-looming government shutdown can be traced back to September, when another budget deadline loomed.

Johnson failed to pass a six-month funding extension. Mostly Democrats voted against the extension, which included a measure (the SAVE Act) to require proof of citizenship for voting.

Instead, Congress came to a bipartisan deal for a bare-bones bill that would keep the government funded through 20 December.

Johnson pledged to his Republican conference then that come December, when the funding was set to expire, they would not have to vote on an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink spending bill ahead of the holiday recess.

But when congressional leaders released the text of the latest spending bill on Tuesday, three days before lawmakers were set to break for the holidays, it totalled 1,547 pages.

The bill would have extended government funding until March 14 – nearly three months after Trump is set to return to the White House.

It included more than $110bn (£88bn) in emergency disaster relief and $30bn in aid to farmers; the first pay raise for lawmakers since 2009; federal funds to rebuild a bridge that collapsed in Baltimore; healthcare reforms; and, provisions aimed at preventing hotels and live event venues from deceptive advertising.

Some Republicans criticised Johnson for abandoning a more basic spending bill, specifically condemning left-leaning provisions that were negotiated to win support from Democrats.

Johnson defended the deal, putting the blame on “acts of God” for needing some of the added provisions, like disaster aid and assistance for farmers.

Still, opposition for Johnson’s spending deal grew on Wednesday.

Musk, who Trump has tasked with identifying spending cuts by co-leading the Department of Government Efficiency ( which is not an official government department), lobbied heavily against the existing deal with dozens of posts on X.

He called it “criminal” and often referenced false statements about the bill in his posts.

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Musk wrote on X that any lawmaker “who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years”.

After Musk drummed up opposition for the spending bill, Trump and JD Vance, the incoming vice-president, dealt the final blow to Johnson’s deal that evening.

They said in a joint statement they wanted streamlined legislation without the Democratic-backed provisions that Johnson had included.

They also called for Congress to raise or eliminate the debt ceiling, which determines how much the government can borrow to pay its bills, and limit the funding legislation to temporary spending and disaster relief.

They called anything else “a betrayal of our country”.

Johnson and House Republicans introduced the streamlined legislation on Thursday, which then failed in a vote that evening. It’s not clear what they will do next.

Lawmakers are not expected to vote again on Thursday, meaning they’ll return on Friday morning with less than 24 hours on the clock until a potential shutdown.

But it’s clear the partisan blame game is in full swing. After the Thursday bill was shot down, Johnson told reporters it was “very disappointing” that almost every House Democrat had voted against it.

“It is, I think, really irresponsible for us to risk a shutdown over these issues on things that they have already agreed upon,” he said.

Johnson will likely need Democratic support, especially as divisions inside his own party over the bill became clear this week.

But Democrats are unlikely to help Johnson with support for a revamped funding bill, blaming him for breaking their bipartisan agreement.

“You break the bipartisan agreement, you own the consequences that follow,” Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries posted on X, which is owned by Musk.

And others seemed to taunt Republicans for seeming to take their direction from the unelected Mr Musk.

On the House floor on Thursday, Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro – the top Democratic appropriator in the House – called the billionaire “President Musk”, to laughter from fellow Democrats.

“President Musk said ‘don’t do it, shut the government down,'” she said.

Still, Johnson needs to find a way to win over Democrats in order to pass a spending bill, especially when pent-up anger within his own caucus is set to boil over.

Time is also of the essence. These negotiations usually take weeks.

Federal agencies rely on annual funding to function. When Congress fails to pass the 12 spending bills that make up the spending budget, these agencies must discontinue non-essential functions.

Essential services – like border protection, in-hospital medical care, law enforcement and air-traffic control – continue to operate.

But many federal employees may go without pay.

While Social Security and Medicare checks are sent out, benefit verification and card issuance stops. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s funding is mandatory, but food stamp benefits may be impacted by a shutdown. This could lead to delays for similar assistance programs.

Other agencies stop operations entirely.

The Food and Drug Administration halts food safety inspections, the Environmental Protection Agency stops inspections and National Parks close to visitors.

This was the first big test of Trump’s influence over current congressional Republicans, and in the vote on Thursday, a number of them balked.

It also poses a challenge for Speaker Johnson, as the House is set to vote in just 15 days on who will serve as the House Speaker for the next Congress.

What previously looked like a secured position for Johnson is now seeming less of a sure thing.

Facing backlash from Trump and Mr Musk, the Louisiana Republican is now under scrutiny from those in his own party over his handling of government funding.

Several Republicans have indicated they will not vote for Johnson to lead the chamber. He cannot afford to lose the support of many Republicans, given that the party holds a slim majority of only five seats in the next Congress.

The threat to Johnson is serious, given Republicans’ recent history.

In January 2023, California Republican Kevin McCarthy went through 15 rounds of ballots before winning the speakership.

Just 10 months later, he was ousted by Republicans, who faulted him for failing to cut spending and for working with Democrats to avert a government shutdown.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia should have launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier and been better prepared for the war.

In his end-of-year press conference on Thursday, Putin said, with hindsight, there should have been “systemic preparation” for the 2022 invasion, which he refers to as a “special military operation”.

Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and pro-Russian forces began a conflict in eastern Ukraine, but it was eight years later that Putin tried to seize Kyiv.

During his four-hour long appearance, Putin also talked about Syria’s deposed leader, Russia’s more aggressive nuclear doctrine as well as domestic issues, like the price of butter.

Billed as “Results of the Year with Vladimir Putin”, the event was broadcast live across the main state TV channels on Thursday.

Putin appeared in front of a large blue screen emblazoned with a map of the Russian Federation, complete with annexed parts of Ukraine.

He took questions from members of the public, foreign journalists and pensioners – but it was a highly choreographed and tightly controlled affair.

When asked by the BBC’s Russia editor Steve Rosenberg whether he felt the country was in a better state than where his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, had left it 25 years ago, Putin said Russia had regained its “sovereignty”.

“With everything that was happening to Russia before that, we were heading towards a complete, total loss of our sovereignty.”

Asked about the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, Putin insisted it was not a defeat for the Kremlin – which supported President Bashar al-Assad militarily for years – but he admitted the situation was “complicated”.

He said he had not yet spoken to ousted Syrian leader, who fled to Moscow as rebel forces closed in on Damascus earlier this month, but planned to do so soon.

He added that Russia was in talks with Syria’s new rulers to retain two strategically important military bases on the Mediterranean coast and that Moscow would consider using them for humanitarian purposes.

On US President-elect Donald Trump, Putin said the pair had not spoken in four years, but he was ready to meet him “if he wants it”.

When put to him he was in a weak position compared to Trump, who is set to take office in January, Putin quoted American writer Mark Twain: “The rumours of my death are much exaggerated,” prompting a smattering of laughs in the conference hall.

Moving on to China, Putin said Russia’s relations with its eastern neighbour had reached an all-time high and the two countries were coordinating actions on the world stage.

“In the last decade, the level and quality of our [Russia-China] relations have reached a point that has never existed throughout our entire history, ” he said.

A lengthy portion of the session was focused on the war in Ukraine, with Putin saying he was “open to compromises” to end the war – although it was unclear what such compromises could entail.

Russian forces are making progress on the frontlines “everyday”, he said, describing his troops as “heroes”.

At one point, he produced a signed flag he said was given to him by Russian marines who were “fighting for the motherland” in the Kursk region, and ushered two observers to hold it behind him for the cameras.

He also talked up Russia’s construction projects in areas it has seized from Ukraine, claiming the standard of roads in the Ukrainian region of Luhansk had greatly improved since it was seized by Russia-backed forces in 2014.

When asked by an audience member if the West had “received the message” on Russia’s change to its nuclear doctrine, which Putin pushed through in November, he said “you’ll have to ask them.”

The new nuclear doctrine allows Russia to conduct a nuclear strike on any country, if it is backed by a nuclear power.

That means if Ukraine were to launch a large attack on Russia with conventional missiles, drones or aircraft, that could meet the criteria for a nuclear response, as could an attack on Belarus or any critical threat to Russia’s sovereignty.

Putin also emphasised the capabilities of Russia’s new intermediate-range ballistic missile, Oreshnik, which was used in a strike on Ukraine in November.

In order to test its power, he suggested Russia should fire the Oreshnik towards Ukraine, and Ukrainian air defence – using US-supplied systems – should try to bring it down.

As for the name “Oreshnik”? “Honestly,” Putin said with a smirk, “No idea. No clue.”

A dominant theme throughout the event was “Russian sovereignty”, with Putin claiming that less reliance on international partners – partly a result of Western sanctions – was one of the key achievements of his invasion of Ukraine.

He said the economy was “stable”, pointing to higher growth than countries like Germany, but admitted inflation of 9.1% was “alarming”.

In fact, the economy is overheating and highly reliant on military production – sometimes termed the “military industrial complex”.

Throughout the address, Putin also answered questions on domestic issues – from telephone scammers to young people’s struggles with getting a mortgage.

Syria’s rebel leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has dismissed the online controversy over videos showing him gesturing to a young woman to cover her hair before he posed for a photo with her last week.

The incident sparked criticism from both liberal and conservative commentators amid intense speculation about the county’s future direction after rebels swept to power.

Liberals saw the request from the head of the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as a sign that he might seek to enforce an Islamic system in Syria after leading the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, while hardline conservatives criticised him for consenting to be photographed with the woman in the first place.

“I did not force her. But it’s my personal freedom. I want photos taken for me the way that suits me,” Sharaa said in an interview with the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen.

The woman, Lea Kheirallah, has also said that she was not bothered by the request.

She said he had asked in “gentle and fatherly way”, and that she thought “the leader has the right to be presented in the way he sees fit”.

However, the incident demonstrated some of the difficulties any future leader of Syria might have in appealing to and uniting such a religiously diverse country.

Sunni Muslims make up the majority of the population, with the remainder split between Christians, Alawites, Druze and Ismailis.

There is also a wide range of views among the various political and armed groups who were opposed to Assad, with some wanting a secular democracy and others wanting governance according to Islamic law.

HTS, a former al-Qaeda affiliate, initially imposed strict behaviour and dress codes rules when it seized control of the former rebel stronghold of Idlib province in 2017. However, it revoked those rules in recent years in response to public criticism.

The Quran, Islam’s holy book, tells Muslims – men and women – to dress modestly.

Male modesty has been interpreted to be covering the area from the navel to the knee – and for women it is generally seen as covering everything except their face, hands and feet when in the presence of men they are not related or married to.

Lea Kheirallah asked to take a photo with Sharaa – who was previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani – when he toured the Mezzeh area of Damascus on 10 December.

Before agreeing, Sharaa gestured for her to cover her hair and she complied, raising the hood on her jumper and then standing beside him for the photo.

Many video clips and pictures of the incident were shared on social media, sparking widespread outrage among ordinary users and media commentators.

People with liberal or non-conservative views saw it as a troubling glimpse into Syria’s possible future under HTS, fearing increasingly conservative policies like the requirement for all women to wear a hijab, or headscarf.

France 24’s Arabic channel discussed the incident, with a headline asking if Syria was “heading towards Islamic rule”.

Others were sharper in their condemnation. One Syrian journalist said: “We replaced one dictator with a reactionary dictator.”

On social media, other commentators warned of “ultra-extremists” ascending to power, while others decried the “forcing of a free woman” to adopt a conservative look.

Islamist hardliners on Telegram criticised Sharaa for agreeing to be filmed and photographed next to a young woman in the first place.

Some called Ms Kheirallah a “mutabarijah” – a negative term for women considered immodestly dressed or wearing make-up.

Such hardline figures ranged from clerics to influential commentators whose views are often shared and read by Syria-focused conservative communities online, and are likely to reach HTS supporters and possibly officials.

Most of them appear to be based in Syria, mainly in the former HTS-dominated rebel stronghold of Idlib, with some having previously served in HTS ranks.

They argued that it was religiously impermissible for unrelated men and women to interact closely and accused Sharaa of seeking “vain public attention” and showing “indulgence” in matters contrary to strict religious teachings.

A post on one Telegram channel called Min Idlib (From Idlib) said the HTS leader was “too busy taking selfies with young ladies” to address demands for releasing prisoners from HTS jails in Idlib.

Many of the conservative figures who spoke out against the photo have criticised Sharaa in the past for political as well as religious reasons, and include clerics who have left HTS.

A funny thing happened on the way to a bipartisan agreement to fund US government operations and avoid a partial shutdown this week.

Conservatives in Congress – encouraged by tech multi-billionaire Elon Musk – balked.

Republicans tried to regroup on Thursday afternoon, offering a new, slimmed-down package to fund the government. That vote failed, as 38 Republicans joined most Democrats in voting no.

All this political drama provides just a taste of the chaos and unpredictability that could be in store under unified Republican rule in Washington next year.

The man at the centre of this week’s drama holds no official government title or role. What Elon Musk does have, however, is hundreds of billions of dollars, a social media megaphone and the ear not just of the president of the United States but also rank-and-file conservatives in Congress.

On Wednesday morning, the tech tycoon took to X, which he purchased for $44bn two years ago, to disparage a compromise that Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson had struck with Democrats to temporarily fund US government operations until mid-March.

As the number of his posts about the proposed agreement stretched into triple digits, at times amplifying factually inaccurate allegations made by conservative commentators, opposition to the legislation in Congress grew.

And by Wednesday evening, Donald Trump – perhaps sensing that he needed to get in front of the growing conservative uprising – publicly stated that he, too, opposed the government funding bill.

He said it contained wasteful spending and Democratic priorities, while also demanding that Congress take the politically sensitive step of raising – or even doing away with – the legal cap on newly issued American debt that the US would reach sometime next summer.

Support for the stopgap spending bill then collapsed, forcing Johnson and his leadership team to scramble to find an alternative path forward. As they did, Musk celebrated, proclaiming that “the voice of the people has triumphed”.

It may be more accurate, however, to say that it was Musk’s voice that triumphed.

• Listen to Americast – Why has Musk been pushing for a government shutdown?
• Five things to know about the looming government shutdown

On Thursday afternoon, Republicans unveiled a new proposal that suspended the debt limit for the first two years of Trump’s second term, funded the government until March and included some disaster relief and other measures included in the original funding package.

But Musk’s involvement may not land well with some legislators. Democrats in the chamber joked about “President Musk”, while even a few Republicans publicly grumbled.

“Who?” Pennsylvania Republican Glenn Thompson responded when asked about Musk. “I don’t see him in the chamber.”

Musk may have been the instigator, but this latest congressional funding crisis reveals what has been – and is likely to continue to be – an ongoing challenge for the narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

For two years, Republicans in the chamber have grappled with keeping a united front amidst a party populated, at least in part, by politicians with an active contempt for the government they help to run.

Internal divisions delayed Kevin McCarthy’s election as speaker of the House in January 2022 and led to his removal – a first in American history – the following year. Johnson ultimately replaced him, but only after weeks of leaderless limbo.

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Some Republicans had hoped that with Trump’s election, members of their majority, which will become even slimmer when the new Congress is sworn in next month, would be more willing to march in lockstep to support the new president’s agenda. And some are.

“I think President Trump pretty much laid out the plan, so I don’t know what the discussions are about,” Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna told reporters after internal Republican meetings on Thursday afternoon.

What this week has revealed, however, is that the president-elect may not always offer the legislature the clear, consistent direction it requires.

His insistence on raising the debt limit, for instance, caught many in his own party by surprise. And outside influences, such as from Musk or others, could inject extra instability into the process.

If Republicans aren’t able to reach near unanimity in the House, they will have to find ways to win over Democrats if they want to achieve any kind of legislative success. And what this week showed (once again) is that the kind of political compromises necessary could prompt a greater number of Republican defections.

Trump’s party will be challenged to effectively govern on its own – but it also may not be able to tolerate governing with the help of Democrats.

If there is no political equilibrium in the chamber, it would put Trump’s more ambitious legislative priorities at risk before he even takes office.

Republicans may yet find a way to avoid a lengthy government shutdown through a temporary budget resolution, even though the first round of pressure from Trump resulted in an embarrassing failure to win enough support within his own party.

For Johnson, however, the damage may have already been done. His authority over House Republicans has been undercut – first by Musk and then by Trump – just a few weeks before he stands for re-election as speaker of the House.

Already one Republican, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, has said he will not support Johnson’s re-election. Others, including members of Johnson’s own leadership team, have been noncommittal. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the firebrand Georgia congresswoman who unsuccessfully pushed to remove Johnson in May, suggested Musk become speaker.

Meanwhile, Trump – the one man who could throw Johnson a lifeline – has been equivocal, telling Fox News that Johnson could “easily” remain speaker if he “acts decisively and tough”.

Decisiveness may not be enough, however, when every direction for the speaker appears to lead to a dead end.

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

A holidaymaker from Northern Ireland who was detained in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after posting a negative Google review is on his way home for Christmas.

Craig Ballentine, from County Tyrone, was arrested in Abu Dhabi airport in October because he posted critical comments about his former employer in Dubai.

He was accused of slander, but the UAE’s strict cybercrime laws meant that he also faced potential jail time for the remarks he made in the online review.

The 33-year-old spoke to BBC News NI before his flight was due to leave Dubai on Thursday and he confirmed that his travel ban had been lifted.

He said: “Reality hasn’t really kicked in yet. Once I return back and I see Dublin outside the plane window that’s when I will be relieved. It has been an exhausting journey for both myself, family and friends.

“It’s coming up to Christmas so now I hope to return and rest for a day or two then get prepared to enjoy the festivities.”

The Cookstown man has already paid a fine but said he may have to return to Dubai at the end of January for a further court hearing.

There were interventions from a number of politicians to highlight Mr Ballentine’s case, including Stormont First Minister Michelle O’Neill, former UUP leader Sir Reg Empey and Mid Ulster councillor Trevor Wilson.

Mr Ballentine had previously told BBC News NI that all he wanted was to get home for Christmas to his family

In 2023, Mr Ballentine got a job in a dog grooming salon in Dubai.

After working there for almost six months, he needed time off due to illness and so he gave his employer a doctor’s certificate as proof of his condition.

But when he did not show up for work, he was registered as “absconded” with the UAE authorities, which meant he could not leave the country.

Mr Ballentine later managed to get that travel ban lifted and went home to Northern Ireland, but doing so took two months and cost him thousands of pounds.

While he was back in Northern Ireland, he wrote an online review of the dog grooming salon, outlining the problems his former boss had allegedly caused him.

He told BBC News NI his Google post “explained the ordeal that I went through”.

In late October, Mr Ballentine returned to the UAE for a short holiday, at which point he was immediately arrested for the alleged slander.

He was transferred from Abu Dhabi to Dubai where he had to await the outcome of the case.

Mr Ballentine is expected to arrive at Dublin airport on Friday morning.

French rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot’s ex-husband has been jailed for 20 years after drugging and raping her, and inviting dozens of strangers to also abuse her over nearly a decade.

Dominique Pelicot, 72, was found guilty of all charges by a judge in Avignon, southern France, and cried in court as he was sentenced to the maximum term.

He was on trial with 50 other men, all of whom were found guilty of at least one charge, although their jail terms were less than what prosecutors had demanded.

Ms Pelicot and her children looked emotionless as the verdicts were read out, occasionally glancing at the defendants and resting their heads against the wall.

The convictions brought an end to France’s largest ever rape trial, which over the course of three months has shocked the country and the world.

On Thursday morning, police shut the road opposite the courthouse to accommodate hundreds of people who turned up to offer their support to Ms Pelicot.

A large banner reading “Thank you Gisèle” was spread across a wall facing the entrance.

Underneath it, several members of the public chanted “rapist, we see you” as defendants trickled in ahead of the trial.

Speaking outside of the court following the verdicts, Ms Pelicot said the trial had been a “very difficult ordeal”.

Her grandson, who is in his late teens, was standing next to her for the first time, his arm over her shoulder as she addressed the media.

Her voice faltered only once as said she “never regretted” her decision to make the trial public “so society could see what was happening”.

The 72-year-old’s decision to waive her automatic right to anonymity was highly unusual.

She attended almost every day of the trial, appearing in the same courtroom as her husband of 50 years, who she has now divorced.

French and global media followed the case with growing interest and hundreds of journalists were present in court on Thursday.

As Ms Pelicot spoke, hundreds of people chanted her name and sang feminist songs.

She gave her “profound” thanks to her supporters and said she had “confidence” in there being a “better future” where men and women can live in “mutual respect”.

Ms Pelicot’s ex-husband Dominique Pelicot – who had already confessed to his crimes – was found guilty of aggravated rape.

He was also found guilty of the attempted aggravated rape of the wife of one of his co-accused, Jean-Pierre Maréchal.

Maréchal – who was described as Dominique’s “disciple” as he drugged and raped his own wife for years and invited Dominque to do the same – was jailed for 12 years.

Dominique Pelicot was also found guilty of taking indecent images of his daughter, Caroline Darian, and his daughters-in-law, Aurore and Celine.

Caroline – who was in court on Thursday – previously told the trial she felt she was the “forgotten victim” as, unlike in her mother’s case, there was no record of the abuse she is convinced was inflicted on her.

Dominique denied drugging and abusing his daughter.

“I will never come see you and you will die alone like a dog,” she shouted at him in court in November.

After the verdicts were delivered, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer said her client was “somewhat dazed” by his sentence and would consider whether to appeal. He has 10 days to decide whether to do so.

Dominique Pelicot stood accused alongside 50 other men, 46 of whom were found guilty of rape, two of attempted rape and two of sexual assault.

Several of them have already spent years in jail as they were arrested when police conducted their initial investigation in 2021, and will therefore be free relatively soon.

Most of the men on trial had denied that what they did was rape.

They argued they did not realise Ms Pelicot was unconscious and therefore did not “know” they were raping her. It is an argument that sparked a nationwide discussion about France’s legal definition of rape.

The defendants’ jail terms range from between three and 15 years.

In a statement to AFP news agency, the Pelicot children said they were “disappointed” by the “low sentences”.

For almost a decade from 2011, Dominique Pelicot drugged his now ex-wife and raped her, and recruited dozens of men online to have sex with her while she was unconscious.

His crimes were discovered in 2020, when police arrested him over a separate charge of filming up the skirts of women in a supermarket.

Police seized his devices and found thousands of videos on his laptop, with evidence of around 200 rapes.

Investigators used the videos to track down his co-accused, although they were unable to identify an additional 21 men.

Dominique Pelicot admitted the charges in 2020.

The trial sparked a discussion about whether the issue of consent should be added to France’s legal definition of rape, as it has been in other European countries.

Rape in France is currently defined as “any act of sexual penetration committed against another person by violence, constraint, threat or surprise”, meaning prosecutors must prove intent to rape.

Many of the defendants argued they did not realise Ms Pelicot had not consented, claiming they were “tricked” by Dominique Pelicot, and believed they were going to the couple’s house for a threesome involving a fantasy that the woman would be asleep.

The trial also shone a light on the issue of chemical submission, or drug-induced sexual assault.

Most of the 50 men came from towns and villages in a 50km (30 mile) radius of the Pelicots’ home village of Mazan.

They included firefighters, lorry drivers, soldiers, a journalist and a DJ, and were been described by defence lawyers as being “ordinary people”, earning them the nickname Monsieur-Tout-Le-Monde (Mr Everyman).

The trial also brought sexual violence against women into the spotlight in France, with many praising Ms Pelicot for her bravery in opening up the case to the public.

She previously said she was determined to make “shame change sides” from the victim to the rapist. It is a phrase that has been repeated by her supporters.

But Ms Pelicot has been clear that behind her facade of strength “lies a field of ruins” and despite the widespread acclaim for what she has done, she is a reluctant hero.

“She keeps repeating, ‘I am normal’ – she does not want to be considered as an icon,” her lawyer Stéphane Babonneau told the BBC.

“Women generally have a strength in them that they can’t even imagine and that they have to trust themselves. That’s her message.”

Javed Iqbal, a Pakistani carpenter working in Saudi Arabia, tells BBC Urdu that he deeply regrets his decision to illegally send his 13-year-old son to Europe.

“The agents had sent dozens of boys from the village to Greece and Italy,” he says. “My son, who was stubborn and fell for their tricks, told us repeatedly, ‘If you don’t send me to Europe, I will leave home.'”

Javed’s son, Mohammad Abid, was among five Pakistani nationals who authorities confirm died in waters near Greece after three boats carrying migrants capsized last week.

Pakistani authorities have urged parents to stop their children from embarking on such journeys. But it has not stopped hundreds of youths from trying.

While 47 people from the recent disaster have been rescued, according to embassy officials in Greece, the 35 who remain missing are now presumed dead after the Greek Coast Guard called off rescue efforts on Wednesday.

BBC Urdu spoke to the grieving families of two victims from the district of Pasrur, in central Punjab.

Of Javed’s four children, Abid was the third.

“Abid’s elder brother and sister go to school, but Abid stopped going to school,” says Javed, who lives and works in Saudi Arabia.

Over the past two years, several of their relatives, as well as other boys from their village, have gone to Greece through agents, he added.

All these boys would upload videos on social media after they arrived in Greece. After seeing social media videos shared by these boys, Abid would ask, “When will the day come when I too will go to Europe?”

“I explained to him many times that you are still young, you can go when you grow up, but he remained adamant,” says Javed. “I told him to come to me in Saudi Arabia, but his only wish was to do go Europe.”

In a recent press conference, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Greece, Aamar Aftab Qureshi, expressed surprise that a child was among the five Pakistani nationals who died in the accidents. He added that young children were among the survivors.

“This trend of sending children illegally is extremely dangerous,” he said.

But Javed says that whenever Abid returned home after meeting these agents, he would threaten to leave home if his mother did not raise money to send him.

“She would make me talk to him on the phone, and I would explain to him. He would agree temporarily, but after a day or two, he would go off the rails again,” Javed says.

So Javed sold part of his farm land and his wife sold some of her jewellery. They paid the agent 2.56 million Pakistan rupees (£7,300; $9,200) to bring Abid to Europe.

Javed says that his son arrived in Egypt from Faisalabad airport and then went to Libya, where he stayed for two months and kept in contact daily with his family.

“He was happy and kept saying that there were some difficulties, but that they were temporary and he would soon reach his destination,” says Javed. “We didn’t know that his destination was not Europe, but death.”

“When there was a rumour about a boat capsizing in the sea near Greece, we tried to get information but nothing was coming out,” he recalls.

The family eventually managed to get in touch with a friend in Greece, who went to the migrant hospital and found Abid’s body. They also subsequently received a call from the Pakistani embassy in Greece.

In Ucha Jajja, another village in central Punjab, is another family grieving the death of their son. Irfan Arshad’s 19-year-old son Muhammad Sufyan was also killed in the accident, as confirmed by Pakistani authorities in Greece.

According to Irfan Arshad, the agent deceived them until the last moment, saying that he was sending their son safely in a boat and that there was no need to worry.

“When there was chatter in the village that the boat had capsized near Greece, darkness fell before our eyes,” Irfan says. “It feels like I bought my son’s death with my own hands by paying three million rupees.”

Irfan, who owns an oil and fertiliser shop, has four sons. Two of them are living in Bahrain, while the third son is already in Greece. He sold an acre of land to send his youngest son to Greece.

The FIA has filed a human trafficking case against four people over the death of Muhammad Sufyan. According to Irfan’s account in the report, after Sufyan was taken to Libya, the agent had assured them that Sufyan would be transferred to Greece soon. Instead, Sufyan was kept in a safe house in Libya for two months and only given one meal a day.

“My son got cholera from eating stale food, which made him very weak,” Irfan says. “Whenever we talked to Sufyan, he sounded very worried. We kept thinking maybe it was because he was away from home for the first time, and when he reached Greece, he would be very happy.”

After he was finally put on a boat to Greece, Sufyan’s family received a call from his companions about his death.

In 2023, a boat carrying illegal immigrants sank around the same area of Greece, resulting in the death of 262 Pakistanis. After the tragedy, authorities vowed a strong response against agents involved in human trafficking.

Such sentiments were echoed again on Wednesday as officials met to discuss the latest tragedy. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that the repeated occurrence of such incidents is a matter of concern for Pakistan, and vowed strict action against those involved in human trafficking.

Abdul Qadir Qamar, regional director of the Federal Investigation Agency, told BBC Urdu that the suspects have been running a human trafficking ring in different countries for a long time.

“The FIA’s investigation so far has revealed that the suspects who illegally sent youths abroad in Pasrur belong to the same family,” he said. “And these suspects have so far sent hundreds of people abroad illegally.”

The problem, he said, was that the families of boat accident survivors often do not want to take action against the agents.

The court has recorded 174 cases of human trafficking so far. Only four have been convicted.

Irfan says that Pakistan’s foreign ministry told him Sufyan’s body would reach Pakistan in early January – but that is too long a wait for his family.

“We are dying moment by moment,” Irfan says. “Until we see our son’s body, we will be neither living nor dead.

“How can those whose sons die ever have peace?”

A Labour minister has been named in an investigation into claims her family embezzled up to £3.9bn (Tk 590 billion) from infrastructure projects in Bangladesh.

Tulip Siddiq, 42, who as the Treasury’s Economic Secretary is responsible for tackling corruption in UK financial markets, is alleged to have brokered a deal with Russia in 2013 that overinflated the price of a new nuclear power plant in Bangladesh.

The allegation is part of a wider investigation by Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) into Siddiq’s aunt, Sheikh Hasina, who was deposed as prime minister of the country in August.

A source close to Siddiq said these were “trumped up charges”.

The source also said the allegations were “completely politically motivated” and designed to damage her aunt.

Conservative shadow home office minister Matt Vickers said: “The fact Labour’s anti-corruption minister is reportedly embroiled in a corruption case is the latest stain on Keir Starmer’s judgement.

“It is high time she came clean. The British public deserve a government that is focused on their priorities, not distracted by yet another scandal.”

Downing Street said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had confidence in Siddiq, and she will continue her responsibility as the minister overseeing anti-corruption efforts.

Siddiq has “denied any involvement in the claims” accusing her of involvement in embezzlement, according to the prime minister’s official spokesman.

But she has recused herself – or stepped back – from any political decisions involving Bangladesh, the spokesman added.

The investigation is based on a series of allegations made by Bobby Hajjaj, a senior political opponent of Hasina.

The BBC understands that Siddiq has not had any contact with the ACC as part of the investigation.

The ACC is also investigating several of Hasina’s family members, including Siddiq’s mother Sheikh Rehana Siddiq, and senior officials from her government.

Hasina, who was in charge of Bangladesh for more than 20 years, was seen as an autocrat whose government ruthlessly clamped down on dissent.

Since fleeing the country Hasina has been accused of multiple crimes by the new Bangladeshi government.

Hasina is wanted by Bangladesh’s International Criminal Tribunal (ICT) for her alleged involvements in “crimes against humanity” that took place during the demonstrations, in which hundreds were killed.

Arrest warrants have also been issued for 45 others, including former government ministers who also fled the country.

Syed Faruk, who runs the UK branch of Hasina’s Awami League party, said the claims were “fabricated”.

Siddiq was elected MP for Hampstead and Highgate in 2015, the north London constituency neighbouring Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

Corruption allegations and convictions against top leaders of ousted governments are not new in Bangladesh.

Hasina’s main predecessor as prime minister, Khaleda Zia faced similar charges, which she also dismissed as politically motivated. As did ex-president Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who seized power as head of the army during a bloodless coup in 1982.

The Bangladeshi judiciary’s independence has long been questioned.

Government changes often bring judicial reshuffles, with ruling parties regularly accused of targeting political opponents.

Court documents seen by the BBC show Hajjaj has accused Siddiq of mediating and coordinating meetings for the Bangladeshi officials with the Russian government to build the £10bn Rooppur Power Plant Project.

It is claimed that the deal inflated the price of the plant by £1bn, according to the documents – 30% of which was allegedly distributed to Siddiq and other family members via a complex network of banks and overseas companies.

In total, Hajjaj alleges £3.9bn was siphoned out of the project by Hasina’s family and minister.

Footage from 2013 appears to show Siddiq attended the deal’s signing by Hasina and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, recorded by the Associated Press.

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It is not unusual for couples to argue over naming their baby, but it rarely ends up in court.

But a couple from India’s southern state of Karnataka found themselves needing the courts to intervene following a three year fight over their son’s name.

In fact, the fight had got so nasty the couple were seeking a divorce.

It all began back in 2021, when the woman – who has not been named – gave birth to a boy and went to her parents’ home for a few weeks. It is common for women in India to move to their parents’ house after having a child to rest and recover.

Normally, the husband would come to bring both the mother and the baby back to their home.

But when the then-21-year-old woman refused to accept the name her husband had chosen for their son, he was upset – and never went to bring her back.

Instead, she chose the name Adi for her child – made up of the first letter of her name, and part of her husband’s, according to Hunsur’s assistant public prosecutor Sowmya MN.

Months turned into years and the woman, who was still at her parents’ house, approached the local court in Hunsur town of the state’s Mysuru district seeking financial support from her husband.

Her lawyer MR Harish told BBC Hindi that the the dispute had now escalated to the point where she was seeking a divorce.

“She wanted maintenance money as she is a home-maker,” he said.

The case was initially filed in a local court but later transferred to the People’s court, also known as the Lok Adalat, which handle cases which can be solved through mediation.

Despite multiple suggestions from judges, the couple remained firm – until they finally agreed on a name chosen by the court.

The child is now named Aryavardhana, Ms Sowmya says, which means “of nobility”.

The couple then exchanged garlands, a symbol of acceptance as per Indian tradition, and apparently left happily to continue their marriage.

This is not the only time in recent years that an Indian court has had to get involved when it comes to naming a child.

Last September, a child in Kerala was refused entry to school after it was revealed her birth certificate was blank.

Her mother approached the court explaining she had tried to get the now four-year-old registered, but officials refused to complete the form because the father – from whom she was separated – was not present.

In its order, the high court directed the birth registration office to accept the name suggested by the mother and add the father’s name.