The US is sending air accident investigators to South Korea to help determine what went wrong with the Jeju Air plane that crash-landed at Muan airport and skidded into a barrier early on Sunday, killing 179.

The team of investigators includes the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing, which manufactured the 17-year-old aircraft.

“The NTSB is leading a team of U.S. investigators (NTSB, Boeing and FAA) to assist the Republic of Korea’s Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board (ARAIB) with their investigation of the Dec. 29 Jeju Air accident at Muan International Airport in Muan, Republic of Korea,” the NTSB Newsroom account posted on X.

The Boeing 737-800, operated by the discount airline Jeju Air, had departed from Bangkok, Thailand and arrived in Muan, South Korea, at approximately 9am local time.

Air safety experts have questioned why the plane had not been able to lower its undercarriage after being hit by an apparent bird strike despite having multiple redundancy systems onboard.

As of Sunday evening, local time, 179 of 181 people onboard the plane were confirmed dead. The two survivors were both crew members who were rescued from the back of the plane during the initial search, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.

In a briefing on Sunday, South Korea’s ministry of land, infrastructure and transport reported that the control tower had warned of birds in the area just before the plane landed, Yonhap reported.

The pilot then sent out a “mayday” signal and made one attempt to land. On the second attempt, the plane landed on its belly, and skidded before hitting a barrier and and going up in flames.

“It is presumed to have been a bird strike. Smoke came out of one of the engines and then it exploded,” a surviving crew member said in a witness report, Yonhap reported.

Joe Biden issued a statement while on vacation in St Croix in the Virgin Islands.

“Jill and I are deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life that occurred as a result of the Jeju Airlines accident in Muan, Republic of Korea,” the US president said. “As close allies, the American people share deep bonds of friendship with the South Korean people and our thoughts and prayers are with those impacted by this tragedy. The United States stands ready to provide any necessary assistance.”

Jeju Air flight 2216 had 181 people onboard, including 175 passengers, four flight attendants and two pilots.

Distraught family members gathered at Muan international airport in South Korea on Sunday after a plane carrying 181 people from Bangkok crashed, killing all but two people onboard, in the country’s worst domestic civil aviation disaster.

Officials said all 175 passengers and four of the six crew members were killed when the Boeing 737-800 attempted an emergency landing, smashed into a wall and burst into flames at 9am local time at the airport, about 185 miles south-west of Seoul.

Two flight attendants who survived are being treated in hospital. One was in an intensive care unit with fractures to his ribs, shoulder blade and upper spine, said Ju Woong, the director of the Ewha Womans University Seoul hospital. The man told doctors he “woke up to find [himself] rescued”.

A stench of kerosene hung over the airport on Sunday night and scattered plane seats, suitcases and twisted bits of metal were visible close to the wrecked fuselage of Jeju Air flight 2216, which had been carrying mainly Korean passengers returning from winter holidays, as well as two Thai passengers.

Joe Biden said in a statement that he and First Lady Jill Biden were “deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life” and noted that “as close allies” of South Korea whose people “share deep bonds of friendship” with Americans, “our thoughts and prayers are with those impacted”.

A team of US team air accident investigators led by the NTSB, FAA and Boeing, makers of the 737-800 that crashed, would be assisting Korean air investigators, the NTSB said Sunday, as air safety experts questioned why the plane had not been able to lower its undercarriage after one engine was hit by what appeared to be a bird strike.

Footage of the crash showed the aircraft skidding along the runway and veering off across a buffer zone before striking a concrete barrier at high speed and bursting into flames as parts of the fuselage flew into the air.

A local fire official said the crash could have been caused by a bird strike and weather conditions, but the exact cause was not yet known.

By late Sunday afternoon, floodlights illuminated the twisted wreckage as a huge yellow crane lifted the fuselage and officials continued the search and rescue mission.

AFP reported that behind police cordon tape stretched across the wire fence at the edge of the runway there were plane seats and other chunks of metal, offering a glimpse of the catastrophic impact of the crash.

Inside the airport terminal, more than 100 family members gathered to receive updates about their loved ones, many looking stunned and tearful. When a fire chief told families that most passengers were presumed dead, the room erupted in wails of grief.

“Is there absolutely no chance of survival?” one family member asked. The fire chief could only bow his head and reply: “I’m so sorry, but that’s what it’s looking like.”

One woman was carried away on a stretcher, apparently having passed out from shock.

Later in the day, boards typically used for arrival and departure information were instead displaying the names, dates of birth and nationalities of the victims.

“I had a son onboard that plane … he has yet to be identified,” one elderly man waiting in the airport lounge told AFP. The sounds of people wailing and screaming echoed through the two-story airport building as the names and identities of victims were confirmed.

“My younger sister went to heaven today,” a 65-year-old woman who gave only her surname, Jo, told AFP. Her sister had been on holiday with friends in Bangkok, the woman said. “My husband is now trying to check whether she’s been identified.”

Authorities said the youngest passenger was a three-year-old boy and the oldest was 78. Five of the dead were children under the age of 10.

The only sounds near the crash site were the whirring of cameras and the murmur of reporters broadcasting live, as relatives lost for words awaited news of their loved ones.

In the area around the runway, AFP reporters could see duty-free booklets and sanitary gloves worn by the flight crew scattered across the field, not far from the charred tail of the aircraft.

Heartbreaking stories of family members were shared online, with one person saying his mother and his five aunts were on the plane. “I was told they would arrive around 8.50am today, so I came to the airport to pick up my mother and aunts, but I’ve heard no word from them,” he told local media.

A screenshot of a final KakaoTalk message exchange between a passenger and their family was widely reported in local media. The message from the parent onboard the plane said: “Wait, a bird is stuck in the wing. Unable to land now … should I leave a will?”

It was the last message, sent at 9.01am. Their child replied: “Why can’t I make a call with you?” It was delivered at 9.37am and has remained unread.

A moment of silence was held at sporting events including volleyball and basketball games on Sunday. All major South Korean broadcasters changed their schedules to emergency news programming. End-of-year entertainment awards shows and comedy shows were cancelled.

Transport ministry officials said an early assessment of communication records showed that the airport control tower issued a bird strike warning to the plane shortly before it intended to land and gave its pilot permission to land in a different area.

The pilot sent out a distress signal shortly before the plane went past the runway and skidded across a buffer zone before hitting the wall, the officials said.

“The cause of the accident is presumed to be a bird strike combined with adverse weather conditions,” Lee Jeong-hyun, the chief of Muan fire station, told a media briefing. “However, the exact cause will be announced following a joint investigation.”

Lee later said the tail section was the only part of the plane to have retained “a little bit of its shape. The rest is almost impossible to recognise.”

Joo Jong-wan, a transport ministry official, said workers had retrieved the plane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders. They would be examined by government experts, Joo said, adding that the runway would be closed until 1 January. US investigators are to help with the inquiry into the crash.

The accident comes as South Korea is in the midst of political chaos after the suspended president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was impeached earlier this month over an attempt to declare martial law.

South Korea’s acting president, Choi Sang-mok, arrived at the crash scene on Sunday and said the government was putting all its resources into dealing with the incident. It is the first major test for Choi, who assumed office on Friday.

Some families voiced anger at what they saw as a delayed response from authorities and the airline. They had pleaded to be allowed near the crash site since the morning but were denied access because of the restricted nature of the airport zone.

One relative used a microphone to plead for more information. “My older brother died and I don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “I don’t know.”

Thick plumes of smoke could be seen rising into the sky after the crash at 9am on Sunday. Some photographs showed fire engulfing parts of the aircraft.

Yoo Jae-yong, 41, who was staying near the airport, told the Yonhap news agency he saw a spark on the plane’s right wing before the incident. “I was telling my family there was a problem with the plane when I heard a loud explosion,” Yoo said.

Another witness, Kim Yong-cheol, 70, said the plane failed to land on the first attempt and circled back for another attempt.

Kim said he heard the sound of “metallic scraping” twice about five minutes before the crash. He saw the plane rising after failing to make a landing, before he heard a loud explosion and saw black smoke billowing into the sky.

The national fire agency said the initial fire in the wreckage of the plane was brought under control at 9.46am, 43 minutes after the first emergency call was received at 9.03am.

The country declared a seven-day national mourning period effective from Sunday, with memorial altars to be set up nationwide.

South Korean law enforcement officials have requested a court warrant to arrest impeached president, Yoon Suk Yeol, as they investigate whether his short-lived martial law decree amounted to rebellion.

The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, which is leading a joint investigation with police and military authorities into the power grab that lasted only a few hours on 3 December, confirmed it requested the warrant from a Seoul court. They plan to question Yoon on allegations of abuse of authority and orchestrating a rebellion.

Yoon has dodged several requests by the joint investigation team and public prosecutors to appear for questioning and has also blocked searches of his offices. It was not clear whether the court will grant the warrant or whether Yoon can be compelled to appear for questioning.

The application by investigators marks the first attempt in the country’s history to forcibly detain a president before the impeachment procedure is complete.

Under the country’s laws, locations potentially linked to military secrets cannot be seized or searched without the consent of the person in charge, and it’s unlikely that Yoon will voluntarily leave his residence if he faces detainment.

Yoon’s presidential powers were suspended after the National Assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December over his imposition of martial law that lasted only hours but has triggered weeks of political turmoil, halted high-level diplomacy and rattled financial markets. Yoon’s fate now lies with the Constitutional Court, which has begun deliberations on whether to uphold the impeachment and formally remove him from office or reinstate him.

Yoon has defended the martial law decree as a necessary act of governance, describing it as a warning against the liberal opposition Democratic Party, which has been bogging down his agenda with its majority in the parliament.

Parliament voted last week to also impeach prime minister Han Duck-soo, who had assumed the role of acting president after Yoon’s powers were suspended, over his reluctance to fill three Constitutional Court vacancies ahead of the court’s review of Yoon’s case.

The country’s new interim leader is deputy prime minister Choi Sang-mok, who is also finance minister.

Parts of the British government and disgruntled members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary were responsible for a series of major leaks during and after the establishment of the 1998 Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland, according to claims in newly released Irish government archives.

An Irish department of foreign Affairs official focusing on justice and security created a report and list of the leaks in October 2002. They included attempts to undermine Sinn Féin, the republican political party linked to the IRA, and expose the position of the then Northern Ireland secretary, Mo Mowlam.

In a reminder of the fragile situation in the wake of the historic peace deal, the report described how “disgruntled Special Branch officers in Northern Ireland” were blamed by the British government for a series of releases about the IRA that were designed to damage Sinn Féin in the 2001 general election in Northern Ireland.

Details of an IRA intelligence database containing the names of leading Conservative politicians – described at the time as a “hit list” – was also passed to the BBC in April 2002 and, the briefing note continued, this was followed “days later by a leak to the Sunday Telegraph which alleged that senior IRA commanders bought Russian special forces rifles in Moscow last year”.

Special Branch leaks were also said to be associated with the 2002 IRA break-in at the RUC headquarters in Castlereagh in east Belfast.

Other leaks included the disclosure in February 1998 of papers related to preparations for the Drumcree Orange Order march on 6 July 1997, which had been plagued by standoffs and clashes as nationalists opposed the procession down Garvaghy Road in Portadown.

The gameplan document showed that Mowlam, who was publicly expressing a desire for a negotiated solution to the 1997 parade, advocated “finding the lowest common denominator for getting some Orange feet on the Garvaghy Road”.

In 1997, a large number of security forces were sent to the area to allow the march to proceed. The incident sparked heightened tension and a wave of rioting.

Elsewhere in the newly released Irish archives, papers emerged showing how the UK government was lobbied to do more to assist former paramilitaries to get jobs and integrate back into society months after being released from prison in 1998 after the Good Friday agreement.

The Northern Ireland office minister, Adam Ingram, resisted the pressure by stating society was “not yet at the stage where all of the shutters could go up”, expressing concerns that ex-prisoners could end up teaching the children of their victims.

There were details of an embarrassing affair when a piece of moon rock gifted to the Irish president by Nasa after an Apollo mission and kept at the Dunsink Observatory was destroyed in a fire in 1977.

And in 2002, when the queen was celebrating her golden jubilee, a unionist minister in the Stormont government rebuffed a suggestion that there could be an extension of pub opening hours. Correspondence showed that lord lieutenants in Northern Ireland – representatives of the queen – were not pushing for the more celebratory licensing hours either.

“Lady Carswell in particular believes that it would be difficult for Lord Lieutenants to encourage such activities without appearing political,” one newly released email showed.

Smokers are being urged to kick the habit for 2025 after a fresh assessment of the harms of cigarettes found they shorten life expectancy even more than doctors thought.

Researchers at University College London found that on average a single cigarette takes about 20 minutes off a person’s life, meaning that a typical pack of 20 cigarettes can shorten a person’s life by nearly seven hours.

According to the analysis, if a smoker on 10 cigarettes a day quits on 1 January, they could prevent the loss of a full day of life by 8 January. They could boost their life expectancy by a week if they quit until 5 February and a whole month if they stop until 5 August. By the end of the year, they could have avoided losing 50 days of life, the assessment found.

“People generally know that smoking is harmful but tend to underestimate just how much,” said Dr Sarah Jackson, a principal research fellow at UCL’s alcohol and tobacco research group. “On average, smokers who don’t quit lose around a decade of life. That’s 10 years of precious time, life moments, and milestones with loved ones.”

Smoking is one of the world’s leading preventable causes of disease and death, killing up to two-thirds of long-term users. It causes about 80,000 deaths a year in the UK and a quarter of all cancer deaths in England.

The study, commissioned by the Department of Health, draws on the latest data from the British Doctors Study, which began in 1951 as one of the world’s first large studies into the effects of smoking, and the Million Women Study, which has tracked women’s health since 1996.

While an earlier assessment in the BMJ in 2000 found that on average a single cigarette reduced life expectancy by about 11 minutes, the latest analysis published in the Journal of Addiction nearly doubles the figure to 20 minutes – 17 minutes for men and 22 minutes for women.

“Some people might think they don’t mind missing out on a few years of life, given that old age is often marked by chronic illness or disability. But smoking doesn’t cut short the unhealthy period at the end of life,” Jackson told the Guardian. “It primarily eats into the relatively healthy years in midlife, bringing forward the onset of ill-health. This means a 60-year-old smoker will typically have the health profile of a 70-year-old non-smoker.”

Although some smokers live long lives, others develop smoking-related diseases and even die from them in their 40s. The variation is driven by differences in smoking habits such as the type of cigarette used, the number of puffs taken and how deeply smokers inhale. People also differ in how susceptible they are to the toxic substances in cigarette smoke.

The authors stress that smokers must quit completely to get the full benefits to health and life expectancy. Previous work has shown there is no safe level of smoking: the risk of heart disease and stroke is only about 50% lower for people who smoke one cigarette a day compared with those who smoke 20 a day. “Stopping smoking at every age is beneficial, but the sooner smokers get off this escalator of death the longer and healthier they can expect their lives to be,” they write.

The Department of Health said smokers could find advice, support and resources on the NHS Quit Smoking app and the online Personal Quit Plan, which tailors its advice to individual’s preferences.

Prof Sanjay Agrawal, a special adviser on tobacco at the Royal College of Physicians, said: “Every cigarette smoked costs precious minutes of life, and the cumulative impact is devastating, not only for individuals but also for our healthcare system and economy. This research is a powerful reminder of the urgent need to address cigarette smoking as the leading preventable cause of death and disease in the UK.”

Israel has issued new evacuation orders for all remaining civilians to leave Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza as part of a blistering three-month-old campaign that Israel denies is aimed at depopulating a third of the Palestinian territory, amid reports Israeli attacks have damaged two more struggling hospitals in Gaza City.

The Israeli army forcibly evacuated Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia on Friday, leaving the northern third of the strip, which is cut off from the rest of Gaza, with just one small functioning medical centre, al-Awda, in nearby Jabalia. On Sunday, everyone remaining in Beit Lahia was ordered to leave after Palestinian militants launched five rockets from the area that targeted Israeli territory.

Some patients were taken to the nearby Indonesian hospital, which is without water or electricity and is not in service. Medics were prevented by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from joining them there, the local health ministry said.

The World Health Organization said it would send an emergency mission to the Indonesian hospital on Sunday “to safely move patients to southern Gaza for continued care”.

Israel’s military said Kamal Adwan was being used as a base for Hamas operations, and that it would not allow services to resume there. The Palestinian militant group denies using medical infrastructure as cover for its activities.

The IDF said it interrogated 950 people during the Friday raid on the hospital and claimed that 240 were found to be militants. Thirteen had pretended to be patients and attempted to flee on stretchers or in ambulances, it added.

Most of the medical staff detained have since been released but the hospital’s director, Hussam Abu Safiya, was still unaccounted for. Nurses and doctors told local media they had been beaten, stripped and then forced to walk towards southern Gaza, reports that were corroborated by the WHO.

Sunday’s evacuation order for Beit Hanoun triggered a new wave of displacement for the relative safety of areas below the Israeli-enforced Netzarim corridor, which has cut off Gaza City and satellite towns to the north from the rest of the strip.

The WHO estimates that 75,000 people remain in Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia; approximately 325,000 people have fled since Israel began a new offensive and tightened sieges on the area in early October, cutting off almost all aid.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had lost communication with people still trapped in Beit Lahia and it was unable to send teams into the area because of Israeli forces on the ground. Later on Sunday, an Israeli airstrike killed seven people in a house in the town, said a relative, Said al-Zaaneen. There was no immediate Israeli comment.

Israel denies carrying out a deliberate “surrender or starve” campaign, saying the new offensive is necessary to stop Hamas fighters regrouping, although Israeli media reports suggest that the government aims to annex the area as a military buffer zone.

Palestinian health officials said Israeli military strikes across the territory killed at least 23 people on Sunday, including a direct hit on Gaza City’s al-Wafa hospital that killed seven. The Israeli military said the strike was aimed at members of Hamas’s aerial defence unit, which it said operated from the compound. The top floor of a building at al-Ahli, another hospital in Gaza City, was destroyed by Israeli tank fire on Sunday, residents said. There were no reported injuries.

In Deir al-Balah, a central town, a fourth infant died of hypothermia, as almost all of the strip’s population of 2.3 million struggles to survive in squalid makeshift accommodation and tents amid the onset of freezing and wet winter weather.

Twenty-day-old Jomaa al-Batran was found with his head as “cold as ice” when his parents woke up on Sunday, his father, Yehia, told the Associated Press. The baby’s twin brother, Ali, was moved to the intensive care unit of Deir al-Balah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, which like the rest of Gaza’s medical infrastructure is suffering from a lack of medicine and supplies and overwhelmed by people in need of care.

Israel’s 15-month-old war on Gaza has killed at least 45,300 people and caused a devastating humanitarian crisis, amid accusations from the international court of justice and aid organisations that Israel has deliberately strangled food and aid supplies to the Palestinian territory. Israel says humanitarian agencies are to blame for slow deliveries, and that Hamas is siphoning off aid.

About 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken captive in Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the conflict. An estimated 100 hostages remain in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead. A new Israeli government report expected to be delivered next week to the UN special rapporteur on torture has compiled grim testimonies from freed hostages, including of physical, sexual and psychological abuse of adults and minors.

On Sunday, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had his prostate removed in a routine operation after a urinary tract infection stemming from the benign enlargement of the prostrate.

The procedure raises fresh questions about the 75-year-old premier’s health: he was taken to hospital in July 2023 for an emergency operation to fit a pacemaker, at which time it emerged he had a chronic heart condition that had not been disclosed to the public. He underwent hernia surgery earlier this year.

The justice minister, Yariv Levin, a close Netanyahu ally, is serving as acting prime minister while Netanyahu is incapacitated. The premier’s hospital visit comes as Israel faces fronts in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Syria, and a new escalation with the Iran-allied Houthi movement in Yemen. Netanyahu is also facing a personal battle in the form of an ongoing corruption trial.

Israel has issued new evacuation orders for all remaining civilians to leave Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza as part of a blistering three-month-old campaign that Israel denies is aimed at depopulating a third of the Palestinian territory, amid reports Israeli attacks have damaged two more struggling hospitals in Gaza City.

The Israeli army forcibly evacuated Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia on Friday, leaving the northern third of the strip, which is cut off from the rest of Gaza, with just one small functioning medical centre, al-Awda, in nearby Jabalia. On Sunday, everyone remaining in Beit Lahia was ordered to leave after Palestinian militants launched five rockets from the area that targeted Israeli territory.

Some patients were taken to the nearby Indonesian hospital, which is without water or electricity and is not in service. Medics were prevented by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from joining them there, the local health ministry said.

The World Health Organization said it would send an emergency mission to the Indonesian hospital on Sunday “to safely move patients to southern Gaza for continued care”.

Israel’s military said Kamal Adwan was being used as a base for Hamas operations, and that it would not allow services to resume there. The Palestinian militant group denies using medical infrastructure as cover for its activities.

The IDF said it interrogated 950 people during the Friday raid on the hospital and claimed that 240 were found to be militants. Thirteen had pretended to be patients and attempted to flee on stretchers or in ambulances, it added.

Most of the medical staff detained have since been released but the hospital’s director, Hussam Abu Safiya, was still unaccounted for. Nurses and doctors told local media they had been beaten, stripped and then forced to walk towards southern Gaza, reports that were corroborated by the WHO.

Sunday’s evacuation order for Beit Hanoun triggered a new wave of displacement for the relative safety of areas below the Israeli-enforced Netzarim corridor, which has cut off Gaza City and satellite towns to the north from the rest of the strip.

The WHO estimates that 75,000 people remain in Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia; approximately 325,000 people have fled since Israel began a new offensive and tightened sieges on the area in early October, cutting off almost all aid.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had lost communication with people still trapped in Beit Lahia and it was unable to send teams into the area because of Israeli forces on the ground. Later on Sunday, an Israeli airstrike killed seven people in a house in the town, said a relative, Said al-Zaaneen. There was no immediate Israeli comment.

Israel denies carrying out a deliberate “surrender or starve” campaign, saying the new offensive is necessary to stop Hamas fighters regrouping, although Israeli media reports suggest that the government aims to annex the area as a military buffer zone.

Palestinian health officials said Israeli military strikes across the territory killed at least 23 people on Sunday, including a direct hit on Gaza City’s al-Wafa hospital that killed seven. The Israeli military said the strike was aimed at members of Hamas’s aerial defence unit, which it said operated from the compound. The top floor of a building at al-Ahli, another hospital in Gaza City, was destroyed by Israeli tank fire on Sunday, residents said. There were no reported injuries.

In Deir al-Balah, a central town, a fourth infant died of hypothermia, as almost all of the strip’s population of 2.3 million struggles to survive in squalid makeshift accommodation and tents amid the onset of freezing and wet winter weather.

Twenty-day-old Jomaa al-Batran was found with his head as “cold as ice” when his parents woke up on Sunday, his father, Yehia, told the Associated Press. The baby’s twin brother, Ali, was moved to the intensive care unit of Deir al-Balah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, which like the rest of Gaza’s medical infrastructure is suffering from a lack of medicine and supplies and overwhelmed by people in need of care.

Israel’s 15-month-old war on Gaza has killed at least 45,300 people and caused a devastating humanitarian crisis, amid accusations from the international court of justice and aid organisations that Israel has deliberately strangled food and aid supplies to the Palestinian territory. Israel says humanitarian agencies are to blame for slow deliveries, and that Hamas is siphoning off aid.

About 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken captive in Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the conflict. An estimated 100 hostages remain in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead. A new Israeli government report expected to be delivered next week to the UN special rapporteur on torture has compiled grim testimonies from freed hostages, including of physical, sexual and psychological abuse of adults and minors.

On Sunday, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had his prostate removed in a routine operation after a urinary tract infection stemming from the benign enlargement of the prostrate.

The procedure raises fresh questions about the 75-year-old premier’s health: he was taken to hospital in July 2023 for an emergency operation to fit a pacemaker, at which time it emerged he had a chronic heart condition that had not been disclosed to the public. He underwent hernia surgery earlier this year.

The justice minister, Yariv Levin, a close Netanyahu ally, is serving as acting prime minister while Netanyahu is incapacitated. The premier’s hospital visit comes as Israel faces fronts in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Syria, and a new escalation with the Iran-allied Houthi movement in Yemen. Netanyahu is also facing a personal battle in the form of an ongoing corruption trial.

The arrest of a renowned Italian journalist in Iran is reportedly in retaliation for the detention of a Swiss-Iranian businessman and suspected arms dealer in Italy three days earlier, according to media reports quoting the US state department.

Cecilia Sala, 29, a war correspondent and reporter who works for the Italian newspaper Il Foglio and the podcast company Chora Media, was detained on 19 December while reporting in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and held in solitary confinement for a week.

She was in the country on a regular journalist visa and had published several reports on the shifting landscape in Iran after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Italy’s government said it was working to try to bring her back to Italy.

The foreign ministry said Sala had been allowed to make two phone calls to her relatives. The Italian ambassador, Paola Amadei, visited Sala in prison on Friday, and Antonio Tajani, Italy’s foreign minister, said the journalist was “in good health condition”.

On Sunday, in an interview with la Repubblica, a US state department spokesperson said her detention was allegedly a reprisal for the 16 December arrest at a Milan airport on a US warrant of a Swiss-Iranian businessman and alleged arms trafficker with ties to the Iranian regime.

“Unfortunately, the Iranian regime continues to unjustly detain citizens of many other countries, often using them as political leverage,’’ said the US spokesperson. “There is no justification for this, and they should be released immediately. Journalists do crucial work in informing the public, often under dangerous conditions, and must be protected.’’

“We are aware of the arrest in Iran of the Italian journalist Cecilia Sala,” the US state department added. “Her arrest comes after an Iranian citizen was arrested in Italy on 16 December for smuggling drone components. We once again call for the immediate and unconditional release of all arbitrarily detained prisoners in Iran without just cause.”

Three days before the arrest of Sala in Tehran, Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi, a 38-year-old Swiss-Iranian businessman, was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport on a US warrant over charges of the illegal sanction-busting export of electronic devices that could be used in drones.

The man is accused of criminal association with the purpose of terrorism and is being detained in a prison in Milan.

Najafabadis’ lawyer, Alfredo De Francesco, told Italy’s state agency Ansa that his client rejected all charges against him.

“From the analysis of the documents in my possession, although the charges brought are formally serious, in reality the position of my client appears to be much less serious than it may seem,’’ De Francesco said. “He rejects the charges and is unable to understand the reasons for the arrest.”

Najafabadi, wanted by the US for violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, is accused of trafficking drones, some of which were reportedly used during a deadly attack in Jordan.

His arrest has led to a diplomatic spat, with Tehran summoning ambassadors from Switzerland and Italy.

Questioned about Najafabadi’s arrest, Tajani said: “There is a Swiss-Iranian prisoner who was arrested in Malpensa before Cecilia Sala in Tehran because there was an international arrest warrant issued by the US.’’

“The prisoner, since he has not yet been convicted, is being treated with all the rules of guarantee that we must provide,’’ Tajani added. “He received a consular visit, his lawyer had the opportunity to learn the charges, but they are charges that come from an international arrest warrant, it is not an Italian choice, Italy is not competent for the criminal proceedings of this Iranian. Then we will see about extradition. For the moment he is being held in prison with all the guarantees that are owed to a non-Italian prisoner.”

Sala has nearly half a million followers on Instagram and is a regular guest on Italian talkshows. She has covered among other topics the fall of Kabul and the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the crisis in Venezuela, the war in Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, is closely following the case and all efforts are being made to bring Sala home, her office at Palazzo Chigi said.

The European Commission’s foreign policy spokesperson, Anouar El Anouni, has confirmed close monitoring of the Italian journalist’s “sensitive” situation.

Iran has not acknowledged detaining Sala and her charges remain unknown.

Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev said the Azerbaijani airliner that crashed last week was shot down by Russia, albeit unintentionally, and criticised Moscow for trying to “hush up” the issue for days.

“We can say with complete clarity that the plane was shot down by Russia … we are not saying that it was done intentionally, but it was done,” he told Azerbaijani state television.

Aliyev said that the airliner, which crashed on Wednesday in Kazakhstan, was hit by fire from the ground over Russia and “rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare”.

Aliyev accused Russia of trying to “hush up” the issue for several days, saying he was “upset and surprised” by versions of events put forward by Russian officials.

“Unfortunately, for the first three days we heard nothing from Russia except delirious versions,” he said.

The crash killed 38 of 67 people onboard. The Kremlin said that air defence systems were firing near Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, where the plane attempted to land, to deflect a Ukrainian drone strike.

Aliyev said Azerbaijan made three demands to Russia in connection with the crash.

“First, the Russian side must apologise to Azerbaijan. Second, it must admit its guilt. Third, punish the guilty, bring them to criminal responsibility and pay compensation to the Azerbaijani state, the injured passengers and crew members,” he said.

Aliyev noted that the first demand was “already fulfilled” when the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, apologised to him on Saturday. Putin called the crash a “tragic incident” though he stopped short of acknowledging Moscow’s responsibility.

He said that an investigation into the crash was ongoing, and that “the final version [of events] will be known after the black boxes are opened”.

He noted that Azerbaijan was always “in favour of a group of international experts” investigating the crash, and had “categorically refused” Russia’s suggestion that the interstate aviation committee, which oversees civil aviation in the Commonwealth of Independent States, investigate it.

“It is no secret that this organisation consists mostly of Russian officials and is headed by Russian citizens. The factors of objectivity could not be fully ensured here,” Aliyev said.

The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media on Sunday that Putin had spoken again to Aliyev over the phone, but did not provide details of the conversation.

The Kremlin also said a joint investigation by Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan was under way at the crash site near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan. The plane was flying from Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, to Grozny when it turned toward Kazakhstan, hundreds of miles across the Caspian Sea from its intended destination, and crashed while making an attempt to land.

Passengers and crew who survived the crash told Azerbaijani media that they heard loud noises on the aircraft as it was circling over Grozny.

Dmitry Yadrov, the head of Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said on Friday that as the plane was preparing to land in Grozny in deep fog, Ukrainian drones were targeting the city, prompting authorities to close the area to air traffic.

The crash is the second deadly civil aviation accident linked to fighting in Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was downed with a Russian surface-to-air missile, killing all 298 people onboard, as it flew over the area in eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in 2014.

Russia denied responsibility, but a Dutch court in 2022 convicted two Russians and a pro-Russia Ukrainian man for their role in downing the plane with an air defence system brought into Ukraine from a Russian military base.

• Russia has vowed to retaliate after the channels of its state media were apparently blocked on the popular Telegram social media platform in the EU. On Sunday the channels of Ria Novosti news agency, Rossiya 1, Pervyi Kanal and NTV television, and Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspapers were not accessible in several countries, including France, Belgium, Poland, Greece, the Netherlands and Italy, according to media reports. Neither Telegram nor EU sources have yet commented on the disruption. Moscow called the move “an act of censorship”. “The systematic cleansing of all undesirable sources of information from the information space continues,” foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, said. The EU had previously banned Russian state media such as Ria Novosti, Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta from being distributed in the bloc, accusing them with disseminating propaganda.

• Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, said on Sunday that the Azerbaijani airliner that crashed last week was shot down by Russia, albeit unintentionally, as he criticised Moscow for trying to “hush up” the issue. “We can say with complete clarity that the plane was shot down by Russia … We are not saying that it was done intentionally, but it was done,” he told Azerbaijani state television. Aliyev said that the airliner, which crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday and killed 38 of the 67 on board, was hit by fire from the ground over Russia and “rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare.” Aliyev accused Russia of trying to “hush up” the issue for several days, saying he was “upset and surprised” by versions of events put forward by Russian officials. The Kremlin said that air defence systems were firing near Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, where the plane attempted to land, to deflect a Ukrainian drone strike.

• Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Monday that Jimmy Carter, who died aged 100, served as US president when Ukraine was not yet independent but “his heart stood firmly with us in our ongoing fight for freedom”. “We deeply appreciate his steadfast commitment to Christian faith and democratic values, as well as his unwavering support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s unprovoked aggression,” Zelenskyy said on X. “Today, let us remember: peace matters, and the world must remain united in standing against those who threaten these values.”

• A probe of the sabotaged Baltic Sea power cable has uncovered a drag trail stretching dozens of kilometres on the seabed, Finnish police said on Sunday. On Christmas Day, the Estlink 2 submarine cable that carries electricity from Finland to Estonia was disconnected from the grid, just over a month after two telecommunications cables were severed in Swedish territorial waters in the Baltic. Finnish authorities have been investigating the Eagle S oil tanker that sailed from a Russian port over suspected “sabotage”. The investigation has revealed a “dragging track” on the seabed, police said on Sunday, adding the trail had been identified “from the beginning to the end”. The cable’s disconnection was the latest in a spate of incidents western officials believe are acts of sabotage linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

• Aleksei Bugayev, a former member of Russia’s national soccer team who played at Euro 2004, has been killed in the 34-month-old war in Ukraine, Russian media quoted his father and agent as saying on Sunday. “Unfortunately, the news about Aleksei’s death is true. It happened today,” TASS news agency quoted the player’s father Ivan Bugayev as telling the Sport24 news outlet.
  RIA news agency quoted Bugayev’s agent, Anton Smirnov, as saying intense fighting had made it impossible to retrieve Bugayev’s body for burial. In September, Bugayev was sentenced by a court in southern Russia to nine and a half years in prison on drug trafficking charges. He later declared his intention to sign up to fight in the Ukraine war. Russian authorities actively recruit in prisons for the conflict.

• Georgia inaugurated a far-right governing party loyalist, Mikhail Kavelashvili, as president on Sunday, ratcheting up a months-long political crisis that has seen huge pro-European Union demonstrations. Kavelashvili, a former professional footballer, is backed by the Georgian Dream party, which has accused the West of trying to drag Tbilisi into the Ukraine conflict.

Chess great Magnus Carlsen will return to the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships in New York after initially quitting following governing body Fide’s decision to bar him from a round for wearing jeans.

Carlsen, world champion between 2013 and 2023, decided to leave the tournament on Friday when Fide barred the Norwegian from participating in a round at the tournament due to his breach of dress code regulations.

In a interview to the YouTube channel of the Take Take Take app on Sunday, the 34-year-old confirmed he would be returning.

“To make a long story short: I’ll be playing at least one more day here in New York. If I do well, another day after that,” Carlsen said.

He added he had talks with Fide president Arkady Dvorkovich after the incident.

“Speaking to Dvorkovich and the main sponsor Turlov, it did feel we could have some fruitful discussions and in the end of the day I decided to play,” he said.

“In addition, I love playing blitz chess. I want to give the fans the chance to see me play it. It could be the last time, who knows.“

Dvorkovich expressed regret in a post on Fide’s X account later on Sunday over the situation escalating and acknowledged Carlsen’s vital role in elevating the sport.

“It is unfortunate that the implementation of dress-code rules, while being legally sound and consistent, has left some feeling this is disproportionate and caused the situation everyone would have preferred to avoid,” he said.

Dvorkovich added that he approved a trial of a more flexible approach to attire during the World Blitz Championships that would allow minor deviations from the official dress code.

Carlsen pointed out that he would definitely not leave his preferred clothes at home.

“As a principle, I will definitely play in jeans tomorrow,” he said.

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools could be used to manipulate online audiences into making decisions – ranging from what to buy to who to vote for – according to researchers at the University of Cambridge.

The paper highlights an emerging new marketplace for “digital signals of intent” – known as the “intention economy” – where AI assistants understand, forecast and manipulate human intentions and sell that information on to companies who can profit from it.

The intention economy is touted by researchers at Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (LCFI) as a successor to the attention economy, where social networks keep users hooked on their platforms and serve them adverts.

The intention economy involves AI-savvy tech companies selling what they know about your motivations, from plans for a stay in a hotel to opinions on a political candidate, to the highest bidder.

“For decades, attention has been the currency of the internet,” said Dr Jonnie Penn, an historian of technology at LCFI. “Sharing your attention with social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram drove the online economy.”

He added: “Unless regulated, the intention economy will treat your motivations as the new currency. It will be a gold rush for those who target, steer and sell human intentions.

“We should start to consider the likely impact such a marketplace would have on human aspirations, including free and fair elections, a free press and fair market competition, before we become victims of its unintended consequences.”

The study claims that large language models (LLMs), the technology that underpins AI tools such as the ChatGPT chatbot, will be used to “anticipate and steer” users based on “intentional, behavioural and psychological data”.

The authors said the attention economy allows advertisers to buy access to users’ attention in the present via real-time bidding on ad exchanges or buy it in the future by acquiring a month’s-worth of ad space on a billboard.

LLMs will be able to access attention in real-time as well, by, for instance, asking if a user has thought about seeing a particular film – “have you thought about seeing Spider-Man tonight?” – as well as making suggestions relating to future intentions, such as asking: “You mentioned feeling overworked, shall I book you that movie ticket we’d talked about?”

The study raises a scenario where these examples are “dynamically generated” to match factors such as a user’s “personal behavioural traces” and “psychological profile”.

“In an intention economy, an LLM could, at low cost, leverage a user’s cadence, politics, vocabulary, age, gender, preferences for sycophancy, and so on, in concert with brokered bids, to maximise the likelihood of achieving a given aim (eg to sell a film ticket),” the study suggests. In such a world, an AI model would steer conversations in the service of advertisers, businesses and other third parties.

Advertisers will be able to use generative AI tools to create bespoke online ads, the report claims. It also cites the example of an AI model created by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, called Cicero, that has achieved the “human-level” ability to play the board game Diplomacy – a game that the authors say is dependent on inferring and predicting the intent of opponents.

AI models will be able to tweak their outputs in response to “streams of incoming user-generated data”, the study added, citing research showing that models can infer personal information through workaday exchanges and even “steer” conversations in order to gain more personal information.

The study then raises a future scenario where Meta will auction off to advertisers a user’s intent to book a restaurant, flight or hotel. Although there is already an industry devoted to forecasting and bidding on human behaviour, the report said, AI models will distill those practices into a “highly quantified, dynamic and personalised format”.

The study quotes the research team behind Cicero warning that an “[AI] agent may learn to nudge its conversational partner to achieve a particular objective”.

The research refers to tech executives discussing how AI models will be able to predict a user’s intent and actions. It quotes the chief executive of the largest AI chipmaker, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, who said last year that models will “figure out what is your intention, what is your desire, what are you trying to do, given the context, and present the information to you in the best possible way”.