Rescue workers are searching for survivors after a major earthquake killed dozens of people and damaged more than 1,000 buildings in a remote region of Tibet, near Everest.

At least 126 people were killed, with another 188 injured, after the earthquake hit the foothills of the Himalayas at around 09:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Tuesday, according to Chinese state media.

A large-scale rescue operation was launched, with survivors under additional pressure as temperatures were predicted to fall as low as -16C (3.2F) overnight.

Earthquakes are common in the region, which lies on a major geological fault line, but Tuesday’s was one of China’s deadliest in recent years.

The magnitude 7.1 quake, which struck at a depth of 10 kilometres (six miles), according to data from the US Geological Survey, was also felt in Nepal and parts of India, which neighbour Tibet.

Videos published by China’s state broadcaster CCTV showed destroyed houses and collapsed buildings in Tibet’s holy Shigatse city, with rescue workers wading through debris and handing out thick blankets to locals.

Temperatures in Tingri county, near the earthquake’s epicentre in the northern foothills of the Himalayas, were already as low as -8C (17.6F) before night fell, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

Sangji Dangzhi – whose supermarket was damaged in the earthquake – said the damage to homes had been extensive.

“Here the houses are made from dirt so when the earthquake came… lots of houses collapsed,” the 34-year-old told news agency AFP by phone, adding that ambulances had been taking people to hospital through out the day.

A hotel resident in Shigatse told Chinese media outlet Fengmian News that he was jolted awake by a wave of shaking. He said he grabbed his socks and rushed out onto the street, where he saw helicopters circling above.

“It felt like even the bed was being lifted,” he said, adding that he immediately knew it was an earthquake because Tibet recently experienced multiple smaller quakes.

Both power and water in the region have been disrupted. There were more than 40 aftershocks in the first few hours following the quake.

Chinese state media reported the earthquake as having a slightly lesser magnitude of 6.8, causing “obvious” tremors and leading to the damage of more than 1,000 houses.

Jiang Haikun, a researcher at the China Earthquake Networks Center, told CCTV that while another earthquake of around magnitude 5 may still occur, “the likelihood of a larger earthquake is low”.

Sitting at the foot of Mount Everest, which separates Nepal and China, Tingri county is a popular base for climbers preparing to ascend the world’s tallest peak.

Everest sightseeing tours in Tingri, originally scheduled for Tuesday morning, have been cancelled, a tourism staff member told local media, adding that the sightseeing area had been fully closed.

There were three visitors in the sightseeing area who had all been moved to an outdoor area for safety, they said.

Shigatse region, home to 800,000 people, is the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, a key figure of Tibetan Buddhism whose spiritual authority is second only to the Dalai Lama.

The exiled spiritual leader said he had been deeply saddened by news of the quake.

“I offer my prayers for those who have lost their lives and extend my wishes for a swift recovery to all who have been injured,” the Dalai Lama said in a statement.

The current Dalai Lama fled Tibet to India in 1959 after China annexed the region, and has since been seen as an alternative source of power for Tibetans who resent Beijing’s control – which extends to local media and internet access. Many believe China will also choose its own Dalai Lama when the current one dies.

Tibetan Gedhun Choekyi Niyima who was identified as the reincarnated Panchen Lama was disappeared by China when he was six years old. China then chose its own Panchen Lama.

The Chinese air force has launched rescue efforts and drones to the affected area.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has also called for all-out search and rescue efforts to minimise casualties and resettle affected residents.

While strong tremors were felt in Nepal, no major damage or casualties were reported, an official from the National Emergency Operations Centre told BBC Newsday – only “minor damages and cracks on houses”.

The region, which lies near a major fault line of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, is home to frequent seismic activity.

In 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake near Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, killed nearly 9,000 people and injured more than 20,000.

The tremors on Tuesday morning, which sent many Kathmandu residents running out of their houses, brought back memories of that deadly disaster.

“In 2015, when the earthquake hit, I could not even move,” Manju Neupane, a shop owner in Kathmandu, told BBC Nepali. “Today the situation was not scary like that. But, I am scared that another major earthquake may hit us and we will be trapped between tall buildings.”

North Korea has claimed it fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile tipped with a hypersonic warhead which “will reliably contain any rivals in the Pacific region”.

The launch on Monday – Pyongyang’s first in two months – came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Seoul for talks with some of South Korea’s key leaders.

Hypersonic weapons are more difficult to track and shoot down, as they are able to travel at more than five times the speed of sound.

North Korea is claiming their missile flew 12 times the speed of sound, for about 1,500km.

South Korea’s military earlier said the missile flew 1,100km before falling into the sea, adding that it “strongly condemns” this “clear act of provocation”.

North Korea has previously test-fired hypersonic missiles. Pictures published by KCNA showed that Monday’s missile resembled one that was launched in April last year.

But Pyongyang claims its new hypersonic missile features a new “flight and guidance control system” and a new engine made of carbon fibre.

The country’s leader Kim Jong Un said Monday’s launch “clearly showed the rivals what we are doing and that we are fully ready to use even any means to defend our legitimate interests”, state news agency KCNA said on Tuesday.

Ankit Panda, a nuclear weapons specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the launch of a new weapon is “unsurprising”.

“We’ve known that North Korea has been working with composite materials for use in missiles for a number of years now.

“The appeal of these materials is to broadly improve the performance and reliability of the payload… Better materials can increase the odds of their survival to the target,” he told the BBC.

While hypersonic weaponry has existed for decades, in recent years new missiles have been developed that are much more agile, can re-enter the atmosphere much quicker and conduct evasive manoeuvres, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation.

Hypersonic missiles can be detected by space-based sensors. Various reports suggest there is existing technology that can intercept hypersonic missiles despite their unpredictable trajectories. These are most likely to be deployed at the final phase of their flight, where they would be flying at a lower speed after a long flight through the atmosphere.

While in Seoul on Monday, Blinken had said the US believes Russia plans to share advanced space and satellite technology with North Korea.

He added that Moscow “may be close to reversing” its decades-long commitment to denuclearising the Korean peninsula by recognising Pyongyang as a nuclear power.

During his visit, the US Secretary of State met South Korea’s acting president Choi Sang-mok, where he described the alliance between Washington and Seoul as a “cornerstone of peace and stability on the Korean peninsula”.

South Korea’s military said it has strengthened surveillance for the North’s future missile launches and is “closely sharing information” on the launch with the US and Japan.

The launch took place amid political chaos in South Korea, which has embroiled the country for weeks after suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived martial law attempt in December.

Yoon, who was stripped of his presidential powers after lawmakers voted to impeach him, now faces arrest. The constitutional court is also deliberating whether he should be removed from office.

Pyongyang previously mocked Yoon’s shock martial law declaration as an “insane act” and, with no suggestion of irony, accused Yoon of “brazenly brandishing blades and guns of fascist dictatorship at his own people”.

North Korea is one of the world’s most repressive totalitarian states. Its leader Kim Jong Un and his family have ruled the hermit nation for decades, developing and promoting a cult of personality.

The last time Pyongyang fired missiles was in November, a day before the US presidential election, when it launched at least seven short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast.

Earlier that week, the US had flown a long-range bomber during trilateral military drills with South Korea and Japan in a show of power, drawing condemnation from Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong.

Rescuers in India are racing against time to bring out miners trapped inside a flooded coal mine in the north-eastern state of Assam.

Three of the nine men inside were feared dead, Reuters reported, after the state government said rescue teams had spotted some bodies they have been unable to reach.

The men were trapped on Monday morning after water flooded the so-called “rat-hole” mine, which is a narrow hole dug manually to extract coal.

Despite a ban on such mining in India since 2014, small illegal mines continue to be operational in Assam and other north-eastern states.

The Indian army, which is involved in the rescue efforts, said in a statement that its personnel had arrived at the site in the morning and were assisting the local administration.

“Senior officials of Indian army will also be reaching the site to co-ordinate with the civil administration,” the statement said.

The army’s relief task force includes “divers, sappers, medical staff and necessary equipment”, it added.

On Monday evening, Assam Director General of Police GP Singh said the authorities were ascertaining the exact number of people trapped.

Reports said more than a dozen miners had managed to escape and initial reports suggested that the “numbers would be in single digits”.

The mine is located in the hilly area of Dima Hasao district.

Senior police official in the district, Mayank Kumar Jha, told Reuters that the area was very “remote” and “difficult to reach”.

Mine-related disasters are not uncommon in India’s northeast.

In December 2018, at least 15 men were trapped in an illegal mine in the neighbouring state of Meghalaya after water from a nearby river flooded it.

Five miners managed to escape but the rescue efforts for the others continued until the first week of March the following year. Only two bodies were recovered.

In January 2024, six workers were killed after a fire broke out in a rat-hole coal mine in Nagaland state.

Meta is abandoning the use of independent fact-checkers on Facebook and Instagram, replacing them with X-style “community notes” where commenting on the accuracy of posts is left to users.

In a video posted alongside a blog post by the company on Tuesday, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said third-party moderators were “too politically biased” and it was “time to get back to our roots around free expression”.

Joel Kaplan, who is replacing Sir Nick Clegg as Meta’s head of global affairs, wrote that the company’s reliance on independent moderators was “well-intentioned” but had too often resulted in the censoring of users.

However, campaigners against hate speech online have reacted with dismay – and suggested the changed is really motivated by getting on the right side of Donald Trump.

“Zuckerberg’s announcement is a blatant attempt to cozy up to the incoming Trump administration – with harmful implications”, said Ava Lee, from Global Witness, a campaign group which describes itself as seeking to hold big tech to account.

“Claiming to avoid “censorship” is a political move to avoid taking responsibility for hate and disinformation that platforms encourage and facilitate”, she added.

Meta’s current fact checking programme, introduced in 2016, refers posts that appear to be false or misleading to independent organisations to assess their credibility.

Posts flagged as inaccurate could display labels offering viewers more information on why, and be moved lower in users’ feeds.

That will now be replaced “in the US first” by community notes. Meta says it has no immediate plans to make changes in the EU. The BBC has asked what its intentions are for the UK are but the company has not yet commented.

The new system – which the tech giant says it has seen “work on X” – involves people of different viewpoints agreeing on notes which add context or clarifications to controversial posts.

The UK’s Molly Rose Foundation described the announcement as a “major concern for safety online.”

“We are urgently clarifying the scope of these measures, including whether this will apply to suicide, self-harm and depressive content”, its chairman Ian Russell said.

“These moves could have dire consequences for many children and young adults.”

Meta’s blog post said it would also “undo the mission creep” of rules and policies -highlighting removal of restrictions on subjects including “immigration, gender and gender identity” – saying these have stemmed political discussion and debate.

“It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms”, it said.

The changes come as technology firms and their executives prepare for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on 20 January.

Trump has previously been a vocal critic of Meta and its approach to content moderation, calling Facebook “an enemy of the people” in March 2024.

But relations between the two men have since improved – Mr Zuckerberg dined at Trump’s Florida estate in Mar-a-Lago in November. Meta has also donated $1m to an inauguration fund for Trump.

“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritising free speech,” said Mr Zuckerberg in Tuesday’s video.

Mr Kaplan replacing Sir Nick Clegg – a former Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister – as the company’s president of global affairs has also been interpreted as a signal of the firm’s shifting approach to moderation and its changing political priorities.

Kate Klonick, associate professor of law at St John’s University Law School, said the changes reflected a trend “that has seemed inevitable over the last few years, especially since Musk’s takeover of X”.

“The private governance of speech on these platforms has increasingly become a point of politics,” she told BBC News.

Where companies have previously faced pressure to build trust and safety mechanisms to deal with issues like harassment, hate speech, and disinformation, a “radical swing back in the opposite direction” is now underway, she added.

French far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen has died aged 96.

Le Pen, who had been in a care facility for several weeks, died at midday on Tuesday “surrounded by his loved ones”, the family said.

Le Pen – who repeatedly played down the Holocaust and was an unrepentant extremist on race, gender and immigration – founded the French far-right National Front party in 1972.

He reached the presidential election-run off against Jacques Chirac in 2002.

Le Pen’s daughter, Marine, took over as party chief in 2011. She has since rebranded the party as National Rally, turning it into one of France’s main political forces.

She is yet to publicly comment on her father’s passing.

Jordan Bardella, who succeeded Marine Le Pen as party chair in 2022, said Jean-Marie had “always served France” and “defended its identity and sovereignty”.

• Obituary: Jean-Marie Le Pen – founder of French far right and ‘Devil of the Republic’

French President Emmanuel Macron described Le Pen as a “historic figure of the far right”, adding that “history will judge” his role in the country’s political life.

Far-right nationalist Eric Zemmour said on X that “beyond the controversies and the scandals” Le Pen would be remembered for being “among the first to alert France of the existential threats lurking”.

On the other end of the political spectrum, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the radical left France Unbowed (LFI), said that respecting the dignity of the dead and the grief of their family “does not cancel out the right to judge their actions. Those of Jean-Marie Le Pen are unbearable.

“The struggle against the man is over. That against the hatred, racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism that he spread continues.”

For several decades, Le Pen was France’s most controversial political figure. His critics denounced him as a far-right bigot and the courts convicted him several times for his radical remarks.

In a notorious interview in 1987, he pointedly played down the Holocaust – Nazi Germany’s murder of six million Jews. “I do not say that the gas chambers did not exist. I never personally saw them,” he told an interviewer. “I have never particularly studied the issue, but I believe they are a point of detail in the history of World War Two.”

France has strict laws against Holocaust denial and Le Pen was convicted of contesting crimes against humanity and fined €30,000 ($31,180; £24,875).

The former National Front chief was convicted of the same charge in 2012 after saying France’s Nazi occupation had been “not particularly inhumane”.

Still, Le Pen’s strident anti-immigration policies attracted voters. In the 1988 presidential election, he took 14% of the vote. That figure rose to 15% in 1995, and in 2002 Le Pen reached the final round of the presidential election.

However, parties across the political spectrum called on their supporters to vote against him, and his opponent Chirac won with 82%.

In 2015, Le Pen was expelled from the National Rally after repeating his infamous Holocaust denial.

The dismissal also came during a public feud with his daughter, who accused him of reiterating Holocaust denial to try to “rescue himself from obscurity”.

“Maybe by getting rid of me she wanted to make some kind of gesture to the establishment,” Le Pen would later tell the BBC’s Hugh Schofield.

In recent weeks, scenes of hospitals in China overrun with masked people have made their rounds on social media, sparking worries of another pandemic.

Beijing has since acknowledged a surge in cases of the flu-like human metapneumovirus (HMPV), especially among children, and it attributed this to a seasonal spike.

But HMPV is not like Covid-19, public health experts have said, noting that the virus has been around for decades, with almost every child being infected by their fifth birthday.

However, in some very young children and people with weakened immune systems, it can cause more serious illness. Here is what you need to know.

HMPV is a virus that will lead to a mild upper respiratory tract infection – practically indistinguishable from flu – for most people.

First identified in the Netherlands in 2001, the virus spreads through direct contact between people or when someone touches surfaces contaminated with it.

Symptoms for most people include cough, fever and nasal congestion.

The very young, including children under two, are most vulnerable to the virus, along with those with weakened immune systems, including the elderly and those with advanced cancer, says Hsu Li Yang, an infectious diseases physician in Singapore.

If infected, a “small but significant proportion” among the immunocompromised will develop more severe disease where the lungs are affected, with wheezing, breathlessness and symptoms of croup.

“Many will require hospital care, with a smaller proportion at risk of dying from the infection,” Dr Hsu said.

Like many respiratory infections, HMPV is most active during late winter and spring – some experts say this is because the viruses survive better in the cold and they pass more easily from one person to another as people stay indoors more often.

In northern China, the current HMPV spike coincides with low temperatures that are expected to last until March.

In fact many countries in the northern hemisphere, including but not limited to China, are experiencing an increased prevalence of HMPV, said Jacqueline Stephens, an epidemiologist at Flinders University in Australia.

“While this is concerning, the increased prevalence is likely the normal seasonal increase seen in winter,” she said.

Data from health authorities in the US and UK shows that these countries, too, have been experiencing a spike in HMPV cases since October last year.

Fears of a Covid-19 style pandemic are overblown, the experts said, noting that pandemics are typically caused by novel pathogens, which is not the case for HMPV.

HMPV is globally present and has been around for decades. This means people across the world have “some degree of existing immunity due to previous exposure”, Dr Hsu said.

“Almost every child will have at least one infection with HMPV by their fifth birthday and we can expect to go onto to have multiple reinfections throughout life,” says Paul Hunter, a medical professor at University of East Anglia in England.

“So overall, I don’t think there is currently any signs of a more serious global issue.”

Still, Dr Hsu advises standard general precautions such as wearing a mask in crowded places, avoiding crowds where possible if one is at higher risk of more severe illness from respiratory virus infections, practising good hand hygiene, and getting the flu vaccine.

The US has added several Chinese technology companies, including gaming and social media giant Tencent and battery maker CATL, to a list of businesses it says work with China’s military.

The list serves as a warning to American companies and organisations about the risks of doing business with Chinese entities.

While inclusion does not mean an immediate ban, it can add pressure on the US Treasury Department to sanction the firms.

Tencent and CATL have denied involvement with the Chinese military, while Beijing said the decision amounted to “unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies”.

The Department of Defense’s (DOD) list of Chinese military companies, which is formally known as the Section 1260H list, is updated annually and now includes 134 firms.

It is part of Washington’s approach to counteracting what it sees as Beijing’s efforts to increase its military power by using technology from Chinese firms, universities and research programmes.

In response to the latest announcement Tencent, which owns the messaging app WeChat, said its inclusion on the list was “clearly a mistake.”

“We are not a military company or supplier. Unlike sanctions or export controls, this listing has no impact on our business,” a spokesperson for the company told the BBC.

CATL also called the designation a mistake and said it “is not engaged in any military related activities.”

“The US’s practices violate the market competition principles and international economic and trade rules that it has always advocated, and undermine the confidence of foreign companies in investing and operating in the United States,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington.

The Pentagon had come under pressure from US lawmakers to add some of the firms, including CATL, to the list.

This pressure came as US car making giant Ford said it would invest $2bn (£1.6bn) to build a battery plant in Michigan. It has said it plans to license technology from CATL.

Ford did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment.

The announcement comes as relations between the world’s two biggest economies remain strained.

Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump, who has previously taken a tough stance against Beijing, is due to return to the White House this month.

The Pentagon was sued last last year by drone maker DJI and Lidar-maker Hesai Technologies over their inclusion on the list. They both remain on the updated list.

Tencent shares were trading around 7% lower in Hong Kong on Tuesday. CATL was down by about 4%.

Donald Trump Jr has arrived in Greenland, two weeks after his father repeated his desire for the US to take control of the autonomous Danish territory.

Before arriving in the capital Nuuk, Trump Jr said he was going on a “personal day-trip” to talk to people, and had no meetings planned with government officials.

US President-elect Donald Trump recently revived a controversy he ignited last month when he said “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for US national security.

“We are not for sale,” the island’s prime minister said at the time. “Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland.” But Mute Egede also told Greenlanders to take their next step towards independence.

With a population of 57,000, Greenland has wide-ranging autonomy – but its economy is largely dependent on subsidies from Copenhagen and it remains part of the kingdom of Denmark.

During his first term as president, Donald Trump expressed an interest in buying the Arctic island. He was rebuffed then, as he has been now.

When asked about Trump Jr’s visit to Greenland, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told Danish TV that “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders” and that only the local population could determine their future.

She agreed that “Greenland is not for sale”, but stressed Denmark needed very close co-operation with the US, a close Nato ally.

Greenland’s prime minister had been due to meet King Frederik in Copenhagen on Wednesday, but the meeting was postponed because of what Egede referred to as “calendar gymnastics”. Danish reports said the prime minister was still due to travel to Copenhagen on Tuesday.

The Danish government’s response to Trump Jr’s visit has frustrated several opposition politicians in Copenhagen.

Conservative MP Rasmus Jarlov posted on social media in English that “this level of disrespect from the coming US president towards very, very loyal allies and friends is record-setting”.

President-elect Trump said earlier on his Truth Social social media platform that his son, and “various representatives”, would travel to Greenland “to visit some of the most magnificent areas and sights”.

Trump added that Greenland and its people “will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our nation”.

“We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside world,” he said. “Make Greenland great again!”

Before leaving on board his father’s private jet, nicknamed Trump Force One, 47-year-old Trump Jr said on his podcast Triggered: “No, I am not buying Greenland” – although he said he did love it there.

The president-elect’s eldest son played a key role during the 2024 US election campaign, frequently appearing at rallies and in the media.

His father’s social media post also included a video featuring an unnamed Greenlander, wearing a red Make America Great Again hat, telling Trump to buy Greenland and free it from “being colonised” by Denmark.

The identity of the man in the clip was unclear, however Danish media reported that he had a jail conviction six years ago for drugs offences.

Greenland lies on the shortest route from North America to Europe, making it strategically important for the US. It is also home to a large American space facility.

• A profile of Greenland

Hours after President-elect Trump repeated his interest in buying Greenland last month, the Danish government announced a huge boost in defence spending for the island. Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen described the announcement’s timing as an “irony of fate”.

On Monday, King Frederik X changed the royal coat of arms to more prominently feature representations of Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

Some have seen this as a rebuke to Trump, but it could also prove controversial with Greenland’s separatist movement.

King Frederik used his New Year’s address to say the Kingdom of Denmark was united “all the way to Greenland”, adding “we belong together”.

But Greenland’s prime minister used his own New Year’s speech to say that the island must break free from “the shackles of colonialism”.

Trump is not the first US president to suggest buying Greenland. The idea was first mooted by the country’s 17th president, Andrew Johnson, during the 1860s.

Separately in recent weeks, Trump has threatened to reassert control over the Panama Canal, one of the world’s most important waterways. He has accused Panama of charging excessive fees for access to it.

Panama’s president responded by saying “every square metre” of the canal and surrounding area belonged to his country.

US actress Aubrey Plaza and the family of her husband Jeff Baena have described his death as an “unimaginable tragedy”.

Director and screenwriter Baena died on Friday at the age of 47. The Los Angeles County medical examiner gave the cause of death as suicide.

The director and screenwriter was found at a home close to the Fern Dell Nature Trail near the Hollywood Hills.

“This is an unimaginable tragedy,” a statement given to the PA news agency said.

“We are deeply grateful to everyone who has offered support.

“Please respect our privacy during this time.”

The statement was attributed to Plaza and the Baena/Stern family.

Baena’s surviving family includes his mother Barbara Stern and stepfather Roger Stern; father Scott and stepmother Michele Baena; brother Brad Baena; stepsister Bianca Gabay and stepbrother Jed Fluxman.

Baena, best known for films The Little Hours, Life After Beth and Joshy, married Plaza in 2021.

He graduated from New York University with a degree in film before moving to Los Angeles to pursue directing.

He worked in production under filmmakers Robert Zemeckis and David O Russell (he co-wrote I Heart Huckabees with the latter), before breaking away to make his own films.

Baena made his directorial debut in 2014 with the release of the zombie comedy film Life After Beth, which featured Plaza.

The pair would go on to collaborate on several projects.

The actress is best known for starring in hit US TV series The White Lotus and Parks and Recreation.

She had been announced as a presenter at Sunday’s Golden Globes ceremony earlier this week before her husband’s death but was obviously not present.

The Brutalist filmmaker Brady Corbet used his acceptance speech after winning best director for a motion picture drama to offer his condolences.

“My heart is with Aubrey Plaza, and Jeff’s family,” he said on stage.

Just before New Year, 21-year-old Shatha al-Sabbagh was out buying chocolate for her family’s children from a shop in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.

The “fearless” journalism student – who wanted to shed light on the suffering of the Palestinians – was with her mother, two young nephews and another relative.

“She was laughing and saying we’ll be up all night tonight,” her mother recalls.

Then she was shot in the head.

For Shatha’s mother Umm al-Motassem, the pain is still raw. She stops to take a breath.

“Shatha’s eyes were wide open. It looked like she was staring at me while lying on her back with blood gushing from her head.

“I started screaming, ‘Stop shooting! My daughter is dead. My daughter is dead.'”

But the shooting lasted for around 10 minutes. Shatha died in a pool of her own blood.

Shatha’s family holds the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) security forces fully responsible for her killing, saying their area is controlled by the PA.

“It couldn’t have been anyone other than PA… because they have such a heavy presence in our neighbourhood – no-one else could come or go.”

But the PA blames “outlaws” – the term they use for members of the Jenin Battalion, made up of fighters from armed groups including Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Hamas.

The PA exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

It launched a major security operation in the refugee camp in Jenin last month targeting the armed groups based there, which they see as a challenge to their authority. Nearly four weeks on, it continues.

The Jenin Battalion is accused of blowing up a car in the camp and carrying out other “illegal activities”.

“We have confiscated large numbers of weapons and explosive materials,” says the PA’s Brig Gen Anwar Rajab.

“The aim is to clear the camp from the explosive devices that have been planted in different streets and alleyways… These outlaws have crossed all red lines and have spread chaos.”

Gen Rajab also accuses Iran of backing and funding the armed groups in the camp.

The Jenin Battalion denies links to Iran. In a recent video posted on social media, spokesman Nour al-Bitar said the PA was trying to “demonise” them and “tarnish their image”, adding that fighters would not give up their weapons.

“To the PA and President Mahmoud Abbas, why has it come to this?” he asked, holding shrapnel from what he claimed was a rocket-propelled grenade fired at the camp by security forces.

The PA, led by President Abbas, was already unpopular among Palestinians dissatisfied by its rejection of armed struggle and its security co-ordination with Israel.

This anger intensified with the PA’s crackdown on the armed groups in the camp, which has been unprecedented in its ferocity and length.

Israel sees those groups as terrorists, but many Jenin locals consider them to be a form of resistance to the occupation.

“These ‘outlaws’ that the PA is referring to – these are the young men who stand up for us when the Israeli army raids our camp,” says Umm al-Motassem.

At least 14 people have been killed in the crackdown, including a 14-year-old, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Now many Jenin locals say they fear the PA as much as they fear Israel’s military raids. Shatha al-Sabbagh’s death has only renewed their contempt.

Before she was killed, Shatha shared several posts on social media showing the destruction from the PA operation in Jenin – as well as Israeli raids on the camp last year.

Other posts showed pictures of armed young men who were killed in the fighting, including her brother.

Her killing was condemned by Hamas, which identified her brother as a slain member of the group’s armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades.

The group described her “murder… in cold blood” as part of an “oppressive policy targeting the Jenin camp, which has become a symbol of steadfastness and resistance”.

Mustafa Barghouti, who leads the political party Palestinian National Initiative, sees the fighting in Jenin as a consequence of the divisions between the main Palestinian factions – Fatah, which makes up most of the PA, and Hamas, which has governed Gaza since 2007.

“The last thing Palestinians need is to see Palestinians shooting each other while Israel crushes everyone,” he says.

Inside the camp, residents say daily life has ground to a halt.

Water and electricity supplies have been cut off and families suffer from a lack of food, bitterly cold weather and relentless gun battles.

Locals who spoke to us asked for their names to be changed, saying they feared reprisals by the PA.

“Things are dire here. We can’t move freely in the camp,” says Mohamed.

“All the bakeries, the restaurants and shops are closed. The restaurant I work in opens for a day and closes for 10. When it is open, no-one comes.

“We need milk for the children, we need bread. Some people can’t open their doors because of the continuous shooting.”

The UN humanitarian agency, the OCHA, has called for an investigation into what it describes as human rights violations by the PA forces.

Gen Rajab said some of the “outlaws” who had “hijacked” the Jenin camp had been arrested and that others with pending cases would be brought to justice.

But Mohamed describes the PA’s operation – with innocent people caught in the crossfire – as “collective punishment”.

“If they want to go after outlaws, that doesn’t mean they should punish the whole camp. We want our lives back.”

Even going out to get food or water is a risk, says 20-year-old Sadaf.

“When we go out, we say our final prayers. We prepare ourselves mentally that we may not come back.

“It’s very cold. We’ve taken down the doors in our home to use as firewood just to keep warm.”

The BBC has heard similar accounts from four residents in the camp.

My conversation with Sadaf is interrupted by the sound of gunfire. It is unclear where it is from or who is firing. It starts and stops several times.

“Warning shots maybe,” she suggests, adding it happens sometimes when PA forces are changing shifts.

Sadaf continues describing the camp, with “rubbish filling the streets and almost going into homes”. More gunfire can be heard.

Sadaf’s mother joins the call. “Listen to this… Can anyone sleep with this sound in the background?

“We sleep in shifts now. We’re so scared they might raid our homes. We’re as scared of this operation as we are when the Israeli soldiers are here.”

People say security forces have deliberately hit electricity grids and generators, leaving the camp in a blackout.

The PA again blames “outlaws” – and insists it has brought in workers to fix the grid.

The armed groups want to “use the people’s suffering to pressure the PA to stop the operation”, says Gen Rajab. He says the security operation will continue until its objectives are met.

Gen Rajab says the PA’s goal is to establish control over the Jenin camp and ensure safety and stability.

He believes stripping the armed groups of control would take away Israel’s excuse to attack the camp.

In late August, the Israeli army conducted a major nine-day “counter-terrorism” operation in several cities in the northern West Bank, including Jenin and the camp, which resulted in severe destruction.

At least 36 Palestinians were killed – 21 from Jenin governorate – according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Analysts say that the PA is trying to reassert its authority in the West Bank and show the US it is capable of taking a role in the future governance of Gaza.

“What would be the harm in that?” says Gen Rajab.

“Gaza is part of the Palestinian state. Gaza and the West Bank are not separate entities. There’s no Palestinian state without Gaza. The president [Mahmoud Abbas] has said that and that is our strategy.”

But Barghouti says this approach is an “illusion”. “All you need is to listen to what [Benjamin] Netanyahu says,” he adds.

Under the Israeli prime minister’s vision for a post-war Gaza, Israel would control security indefinitely, and Palestinians with “no links to groups hostile to Israel” – so none of the existing major Palestinian political parties – would run the territory.

But the US, Israel’s major ally, wants the PA to govern Gaza after the war. Netanyahu has previously ruled out a post-war role for the internationally backed PA.

For the residents of Jenin camp, there has been no let-up in the violence and loss.

“The PA say they’re here for our safety. Where’s the safety when my daughter was killed? Where’s the safety with the non-stop shooting?” Umm al-Motassem cries.

“They can go after the ‘outlaws’ but why did my daughter have to die? Justice will be served when I know who killed my daughter,” she says.

The boss of McDonald’s in the UK has said 29 people have been dismissed over sexual harassment allegations over the past 12 months.

Alistair Macrow also told MPs that the alleged cases published by the BBC on Tuesday were “abhorrent, unacceptable, and there is no place for them in McDonald’s”.

It comes after workers at the fast-food chain told the BBC they are still facing sexual abuse and harassment, a year after Mr Macrow promised to clean up behaviour at the restaurants.

McDonald’s has insisted it has undertaken “extensive work” over the past year to ensure it is keeping workers safe.

Since the BBC’s original investigation into the company in July 2023, we have heard 160 allegations of abuse while the UK equality watchdog has heard 300 reported incidents of harassment. It now plans to intervene again.

• McDonald’s workers make fresh harassment claims
• McDonald’s faces up to two sex abuse claims a week
• McDonald’s abuse: MeToo hasn’t helped these teenage workers

Liam Byrne, chair of the business and trade select committee, opened the session with those figures, asking Mr Macrow if McDonald’s had “basically now become a predator’s paradise”.

Mr Macrow said he would like to be able to investigate each allegation to understand them and ensure they can take “appropriate action”.

The measures McDonald’s has put in place mean it is able to offer a “secure, safe workplace where people are respected”, he said, adding he hears from his staff that the plan is “working”.

Mr Macrow said people were “speaking up”, adding that 75 allegations of sexual harassment had been made, 47 had been upheld with disciplinary action, and 29 individuals had been dismissed in the last year.

Mr Macrow was also asked about the issue of zero-hours contracts. Across the UK, 89% of McDonald’s workers are on zero-hours contracts.

McDonald’s says workers can choose to switch to minimum guaranteed hours. But we have spoken to 50 workers across the country who say they were not given that choice.

Some workers told the BBC the insecure hours leads to an imbalance of power. Others, however, said zero-hours contracts worked well for them.

Mr Byrne asked if Mr Macrow accepted that this kind of “abuse flourishes when there is an imbalance of power in the workplace?”

Mr Macrow replied: “The type of allegations you describe are not widespread.” But he added that they do need to be eradicated from the business.

He said he did not want to “belittle” the allegations, but said the majority of incidents referred to the period before a new action plan was implemented.

He insisted that flexible contracts were “very popular” with young people and that they do get offered a choice to switch to minimum guaranteed hours.

The BBC first began investigating working conditions at McDonald’s in February 2023, after the company signed a legally binding agreement with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), in which it pledged to protect its staff from sexual harassment.

After our investigation was published a few months later, McDonald’s apologised and set up a new unit to deal with complaints.

The EHRC also set up a dedicated hotline for abuse claims.

Now the watchdog says it is taking stronger action against the fast-food chain.

McDonald’s has said the company has undertaken “extensive work” over the past year to ensure it has industry-leading practices in place to keep its workers safe.

Jean-Marie Le Pen founded France’s far right in the 1970s and mounted a strong challenge for the presidency. But it was only when he handed the reins on to his daughter that his rebranded party caught sight of power.

He has died aged 96, his family has said.

Le Pen’s supporters saw him as a charismatic champion of the every man, unafraid to speak out on hard topics.

And for several decades he was seen as France’s most controversial political figure.

His critics denounced him as a far-right bigot and the courts convicted him several times for his radical remarks.

A Holocaust denier and an unrepentant extremist on race, gender and immigration, he devoted his political career to pushing himself and his views into the French political mainstream.

The so-called Devil of the Republic came runner-up in the 2002 French presidential election, but he was resoundingly defeated. That devil had to be taken out of the National Front if it was going to progress further – a process that became known as “de-demonisation”.

For his part, the five-time presidential candidate – who started his political life fighting Communists and conservatives alike – described himself as “ni droite, ni gauche, français” – not right, not left, but French.

And all the French had their opinions about Le Pen. In 2015, Marine Le Pen expelled her father from the National Front he had founded four decades previously.

“Maybe by getting rid of me she wanted to make some kind of gesture to the establishment,” he would later tell the BBC’s Hugh Schofield.

“But think how much better she would be doing if she had not excluded me from the party!”

Jean-Marie Le Pen was born in the small Breton village of La Trinité-sur-Mer on 20 June 1928.

He lost his father at 14 when his fishing boat hit a German mine. Le Pen became a – the term French authorities use for those who had a parent wounded or killed in war – entitling him to state funding and support.

Two years later he tried to join the French Resistance, but was turned down. He wrote in an autobiography that his first “war decoration” was a “magisterial slap” from his mother, when he came home and told her what he had tried to do.

In 1954, Le Pen joined the French Foreign Legion. He was posted to Indochina – modern-day Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, at that time controlled by France – then two years later to Egypt, when France, the UK and Israel invaded the country in a bid to take control of the Suez Canal. Both conflicts ended in French defeat.

But it was his time in Algeria that would define so much of his politics, and his career.

He was posted there as an intelligence officer, when Algerians were fighting a brutal but ultimately successful war of independence against Paris.

Le Pen saw the loss of Algeria as one of the great betrayals in French history, fuelling his loathing of World War Two hero and then-President Charles de Gaulle, who ended the war for the colony.

During that independence war, he allegedly took part in the torture of Algerian prisoners, something he always denied.

Decades later he would unsuccessfully sue two French newspapers, Le Canard enchaîné and Libération, for reporting the allegations.

Le Pen was first elected to the French parliament in 1956 in a party led by militant right-wing shopkeepers’ leader Pierre Poujade. But they fell out and Le Pen briefly returned to the army in Algeria. By 1962 he had lost his seat in the National Assembly and was to spend the next decade in the political wilderness.

During a spell in 1965 as campaign manager for far-right presidential candidate Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, Le Pen defended the war-time government of Marshal Pétain, who supported the occupying Nazi German forces.

“Was General de Gaulle more brave than Marshal Pétain in the occupied zone? This isn’t sure. It was much easier to resist in London than to resist in France,” he said.

It was during that election campaign that he lost the sight in his left eye. For several years he wore an eye patch – giving rise to stories of a political punch-up. In reality, he had lost it while putting up a tent.

“While wielding the mallet… a shock in my eye, I have to be hospitalised. Retinal detachment,” he would write in a memoir years later.

It was not until 1972 that Le Pen’s political ascent truly began. That year he set up the (FN), a far-right party created to unify the nationalist movement in France.

At first, the party had little support. Le Pen ran for the presidency in 1974 for the FN, but won less than 1% of the vote. In 1981 he failed to even get enough signatures on his nomination form to stand.

But the party gradually attracted voters with its increasingly strident anti-immigration policy.

The south of France in particular – where large numbers of North African immigrants had come to settle – began to swing behind the FN. In the 1984 European elections, it gained 10% of the vote.

Le Pen himself won a seat in the European Parliament, which he would hold for more than 30 years.

As an MEP he voiced his hatred of the European Union and what he saw as its interference in French affairs. He would later call the euro “the currency of occupation”.

But his rising political fortunes did not stop him giving voice to shocking views.

In a notorious interview in 1987, he played down the Holocaust – Nazi Germany’s murder of six million Jews. “I do not say that the gas chambers did not exist. I never personally saw them,” he told an interviewer. “I have never particularly studied the issue, but I believe they are a point of detail in the history of World War Two.”

His comments about would dog the rest of his career.

Regardless of the controversy, his popularity grew. In the 1988 presidential election, he took 14% of the vote. That figure rose to 15% in 1995.

Then came 2002. With many mainstream candidates dividing opposition support, Jean-Marie Le Pen squeezed into the second and final round of the presidential election.

The result sent shockwaves through French society. More than a million protesters took to the streets to oppose Le Pen’s ideas.

The far-right politician inspired such revulsion from the majority that parties across the political spectrum called on their supporters to back President Jacques Chirac for a second term. Chirac took 82% of the vote, the biggest victory in French political history.

Le Pen would run again for the presidency, in 2007, but by then his political star had waned. Le Pen, then the oldest candidate to ever contest the presidency, came fourth.

Within months of that vote, newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy – who Le Pen had attacked as being “foreign”, because of his Greek, Jewish and Hungarian ancestors – seized on the FN’s main campaign themes of national security and immigration in legislative elections, and stated openly that he intended to go after FN votes.

It swept the rug out from under the FN. Le Pen’s party failed to pick up a single seat in the National Assembly and, dogged by financial problems, he announced plans to sell his party headquarters outside Paris.

In 2011, he resigned as party leader and was replaced by his daughter, Marine.

Father and daughter fell out almost immediately. Marine le Pen consciously moved the party away from her father’s more extreme policies, to make it more attractive to Eurosceptic mainstream voters.

Then the relationship shattered irreparably.

In 2015, Jean-Marie Le Pen repeated his Holocaust denial, in a radio interview. After months of bitter legal wrangling, FN party members eventually voted to expel their own founder.

Two years later, during her own presidential campaign, Marine changed the party name to , or National Rally.

Her father condemned the move as suicidal.

But Jean-Marie Le Pen remained unrepentant.

“The détail was in 1987. Then it came back in 2015. That’s not exactly every day!” he told the BBC in an interview in 2017.

He even proved sanguine about the rifts with his family – at least publicly.

“It is life! Life is not a smooth tranquil stream,” he said.

“I am accustomed to adversity. For 60 years I have rowed against the current. Never once have we had the wind at our backs! No indeed, one thing we never got used to was the easy life!”

A 70-year-old farmer leader in India has been on hunger strike for more than 40 days in a bid to push the federal government to accept demands of protesting farmers.

Doctors say that Jagjit Singh Dallewal’s health has deteriorated and that he is “unable to speak”, but he and his supporters have refused medical aid so far.

Last month, India’s Supreme Court had ordered the government of Punjab state – where Dallewal is from – to shift him to a hospital. The court has been hearing a clutch of petitions related to the issue.

Dallewal’s hunger strike is part of a protest that began in February last year when thousands of farmers gathered at the border between Punjab and Haryana states. Their demands include assured prices on certain crops, loan waivers and compensation for the families of farmers who died during earlier protests.

Since then, they have made some attempts to march to the capital Delhi but have been stopped at the border by security forces.

This isn’t the first time India’s farmers have held a massive protest to highlight their issues.

In 2020, they protested for months at Delhi’s borders demanding the repeal of three farm laws introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

The government claimed that the laws would reform the sale of agricultural produce and benefit the community, but farmers argued that they would be opened up to exploitation.

The laws were eventually repealed but protesting farmers have said that the government has not fulfilled the rest of their demands made in 2020.

Dallewal is from Punjab, which relies massively on agriculture for employment but has been seeing a steady decline in farm incomes, leading to debt, suicides and migration.

He is the leader of a farmers’ group that is loosely allied with Samyukta Kisan Morcha, a coalition of dozens of unions that co-ordinated the protests in 2020.

He earlier led protests against land acquisition in Punjab and demanded compensation for farmers who died by suicide. In 2018, he led a convoy of tractors towards Delhi to demand the implementation of the recommendations of a 2004 government panel which had suggested remunerative prices for farmers’ produce and a farm debt waiver.

In November, before Dallewal started his current hunger strike, he was taken to a hospital by the state police for a check-up. But he returned to the protest site within days, claiming he was detained at the hospital.

In a letter to Modi, he has written that he is prepared to “sacrifice his life” to stop the deaths of farmers.

In terms of demands, not much has changed from earlier protests. The farmers are pushing for their unfulfilled demands to be met, including a legal guarantee for the minimum support prices, a loan debt waiver, pensions for both farmers and agricultural labourers, no increase in electricity tariffs, the reinstatement of a land acquisition law, and compensation for families of farmers who died during previous protests.

But analysts say there seems to be a change in the way Modi’s government is responding to this round of protests.

During the protests in 2020, the federal government had held multiple rounds of talks with the farmers. Top officials, including India’s then agriculture and food ministers, were part of the negotiations.

Last February, when the farmers announced their intention to march to Delhi, key federal ministers held two rounds of talks with their leaders but failed to achieve a breakthrough.

But since then, the federal government seems to have distanced itself from the protests. Last week, when Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was asked by reporters if he would invite protesting farmers for talks, he said the government would follow any directives given by the top court.

Experts believe that the government is being cautious this time around to prevent a repeat of what happened in 2020. In October that year, a key meeting between the then agriculture secretary and farmers’ unions backfired badly, and catalysed the year-long protest that followed.

In September, the Supreme Court ordered that a committee be set up to look into the farmers’ demands.

The committee submitted an interim report in November, which documented the acute crisis faced by India’s farmers. Among other things, the report noted the abysmally low wages farmers earn and the massive debts they are reeling under.

It also said that more than 400,000 farmers and farm workers had died by suicide since 1995, when India’s National Crime Record Bureau began collecting the data.

The committee also put forward solutions including offering farmers direct income support.

The panel is reportedly in the process of reviewing solutions to boost farm income. It was scheduled to hold talks with various farmers’ unions in January.

But some groups have refused to meet them, claiming that the negotiations were not helping them and that the committee should work on providing a safe space to hold protests.

Exactly 10 years after the jihadist gun-attack that killed most of its editorial staff, France’s Charlie Hebdo has put out a special issue to show its cause is still kicking.

Things changed for France on 7 January 2015, marking in bloodshed the end of all wilful naivety about the threat of militant Islamism.

Brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi burst into a meeting at the Paris office of the satirical weekly, murdering its star cartoonists Cabu, Wolinski, Charb and Tignous.

Overall, 12 people were killed by the brothers, including a Muslim policeman on duty outside. Two days later they were cornered and shot dead by police at a sign-making business near Charles-de-Gaulle airport.

That same day saw Amedy Coulibaly – a one-time prison associate of Cherif – kill four Jews in a synchronised hostage-taking at a supermarket in eastern Paris. Coulibaly – who was then shot dead by police – had killed a policewoman the day before.

A decade on, Charlie Hebdo continues to bring out a weekly edition and has a circulation (print and online combined) of around 50,000.

It does so from an office whose whereabouts are kept secret, and with staff who are protected by bodyguards.

But in an editorial in Tuesday’s memorial edition, the paper’s main shareholder said its spirit of ribald anti-religious irreverence was still very much alive.

“The desire to laugh will never disappear,” said Laurent Saurisseau – also known as Riss – a cartoonist who survived the 7 January attack with a bullet in the shoulder.

“Satire has one virtue that has got us through these tragic years – optimism. If people want to laugh, it is because they want to live.

“Laughter, irony and caricature are all manifestations of optimism,” he wrote.

• Charlie Hebdo attack: Three days of terror
• Charlie Hebdo and its place in French journalism
• French terror attacks: Victim obituaries
• Paris attacks: ‘I am not Charlie’

Also in the 32-page special are the 40 winning entries in a cartoon competition on the theme of “Laughing at God”.

One contains the image of a cartoonist asking himself: “Is it okay to draw a picture of a man drawing a picture of a man drawing a picture of Muhammed?”

The Charlie Hebdo and Hypercacher attacks appear now as the overture to a grim and deadly period in modern France, during which – for a time – fear of jihadist terrorism became part of daily life.

In November 2015, there followed gun attacks at the Bataclan theatre and nearby bars in Paris. In the following July, 86 people were killed on the promenade in Nice.

Some 300 French people have died in Islamist attacks in the last decade.

Today the frequency has fallen sharply, and the defeat of the Islamic State group means there is no longer a support base in the Middle East.

But the killer individual, self-radicalised over the Internet, remains a constant threat in France as elsewhere.

The original pretext for the Charlie Hebdo murders – caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad – are now strictly off-limits to publications everywhere.

In 2020, a French teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded outside his school by a jihadist after he showed one of the Charlie cartoons in a discussion over freedom of speech.

And this week the trial opens in Paris of a Pakistani man who – a short time before Paty’s murder – seriously injured two people with a butcher’s cleaver at the Paris offices he thought were still being used by Charlie-Hebdo (in fact they had long since moved).

So as with every anniversary since 2015, the question once again being asked in France is: what – if anything – has changed? And what – if anything – survives of the great outpouring of international support, whose clarion call in the days after the murders was Je suis Charlie?

That was when a march of two million people through the centre of Paris was joined by heads of state and government from countries all over the world at the invitation of then President François Hollande.

Today, pessimists say the battle is over and lost. The chances of a humorous newspaper ever taking up the cudgel against Islam – in the way that Charlie Hebdo used regularly and scabrously to do against Christianity and Judaism – are zero.

Worse, for these people, is that parts of the political left in France are also now clearly distancing themselves from Charlie Hebdo, accusing it of becoming overly anti-Islam and adopting positions from the far-right.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, who leads the France Unbowed party, has accused the weekly of being a “bag-carrier for (right-wing magazine) Valeurs Actuels”, and the Greens’ Sandrine Rousseau said Charlie Hebdo was “misogynistic and at times racist”.

This has in turn led to accusations aimed at the far-left that it has betrayed the free-speech spirit of Je suis Charlie in order to curry electoral support among French Muslims.

But speaking in the run-up to the anniversary, Riss – who counted the dead among his greatest friends and says he does not go through a day without reliving the moment of the attack – refused to renounce hope.

“I think [the Charlie spirit] is anchored more deeply in society than one might think. When you talk to people, you can see it’s very much alive. It’s a mistake to think it’s all disappeared.

“It is part of our collective memory.”

WWE’s flagship Raw show has aired on Netflix for the first time with the return of multiple big names.

The much-anticipated programme saw superstars including The Rock, John Cena and The Undertaker make appearances during the three-hour event in Los Angeles.

Pro-wrestling’s most popular weekly show had previously been shown on broadcast TV around the world for 31 years.

But last year bosses of TKO – the company formed when WWE merged with UFC – announced that Raw would be exclusive to streaming.

It’s claimed that it brings in 17.5m viewers each week in the US, and that WWE boasts one billion followers across various social media platforms.

Reviews of the first show suggested it “was far from perfect” but that there were “lots of special moments to cover”.

Another noted the “amazing production values and improved visuals” but criticised “the sameness of the promos” delivered by stars such as Triple H, The Rock and John Cena.

There was praise for the in-ring action, but widespread agreement that bringing out WWE to use Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan was “a mis-step” after loud boos from the California crowd during his appearance.

The show also marked the start of John Cena’s “farewell tour”, with the star announcing 2025 will be his last year as a competitor.

Cena is regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time and has achieved world champion status a joint record 16 times since joining WWE in 2001.

He told cheering fans he “could not think of a better place to start” his goodbye, while stating his intention to “win the Royal Rumble” event in February.

Fans were also treated to the return of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, who is a director of TKO.

The Rock has previously played the villainous role of “The Final Boss”, but on this occasion he spoke about the “history” of the night and, to the surprise of many, praised and embraced former rival Cody Rhodes.

He then later appeared at the conclusion of the Tribal Combat Match between Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa, embracing Reigns following his victory.

The night also saw the brief return of The Undertaker at the end of the Women’s World Championship match between Liv Morgan and Rhea Ripley.

It was the culmination of a long-term storyline which saw Ripley win the championship.

The action ended with CM Punk and Seth Rollins following up a much-praised back-and-forth promo on the final televised episode of Raw.

It was a match widely recognised as the highlight of the night’s in-ring action, with the sometimes divisive Punk coming out on top.

Netflix agreed to pay more than $5bn (£4bn) for rights to show Raw and other WWE programming, including archive content.

Viewers outside the US will be able to watch all weekly shows such as SmackDown, NXT and live events on the service.

The company said that would include pay-per-view specials including WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Royal Rumble.

It said the deal would affect fans in the USA, Canada, UK and Latin America first, before being expanded to other countries later.

“So many people use Netflix and they’ll put it on and see WWE prominently,” says Brandon Thurston, editor of wrestling site Wrestlenomics.

“So that [could] have a great positive effect for their business.”

With streaming on the rise and television numbers shrinking, Brandon feels WWE has the opportunity to enter more households around the world and attract newer, younger audiences.

“We’re going away from traditional TV [to] the most popular streaming platform. So it should increase that 18-49 audience even more.”

Raw had a three-hour runtime for 12 years, before cutting down to two at the end of 2024.

WWE’s chief content officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque says the streaming platform gives them “flexibility” when it comes to timings.

And Brandon feels it can have an impact on the style of content too, being able to have more or less from week to week.

“They have the freedom to not be bound to a time slot”, unlike normal TV timings, he says.

While Brandon thinks there are overwhelming positives to the deal, he notes the reliance on the streamer could potentially be a negative.

“That’s definitely a possibility that Netflix could start to lose subscribers for one reason or another.

“[But] I think it’s important emphasise just how far ahead it is of everybody else in the streaming market.”

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

More Vietnamese attempted small-boat Channel crossings in the first half of 2024 than any other nationality. Yet they are coming from one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Why, then, are so many risking their lives to reach Britain?

Phuong looked at the small inflatable boat and wondered whether she should step in. There were 70 people packed in, and it was sitting low in the water. She recalls the fear, exhaustion and desperation on their faces. There weren’t enough lifejackets to go around.

But Phuong was desperate. She says she had been stuck in France for two months, after travelling there from Vietnam via Hungary, sleeping in tents in a scrubby forest.

Already she had refused to travel on one boat because it seemed dangerously overcrowded, and previously had been turned back in the middle of the Channel three times by bad weather or engine failure.

Her sister, Hien, lives in London, and recalls that Phuong used to phone her from France in tears. “She was torn between fear and a drive to keep going.

“But she had borrowed so much – around £25,000 – to fund this trip. Turning back wasn’t an option.” So, she climbed on board.

Today Phuong lives in London with her sister, without any legal status. She was too nervous to speak to us directly, and Phuong is not her real name. She left it to her sister, who is now a UK citizen, to describe her experiences.

In the six months to June, Vietnamese made up the largest number of recorded small boat arrivals with 2,248 landing in the UK, ahead of people from countries with well-documented human rights problems, including Afghanistan and Iran.

The extraordinary efforts made by Vietnamese migrants to get to Britain is well documented, and in 2024 the BBC reported on how Vietnamese syndicates are running successful people-smuggling operations.

It is not without significant risks. Some Vietnamese migrants end up being trafficked into sex work or illegal marijuana farms. They make up more than one-tenth of those in the UK filing official claims that they are victims of modern slavery.

And yet Vietnam is a fast-growing economy, acclaimed as a “mini-China” for its manufacturing prowess. Per capita income is eight times higher than it was 20 years ago. Add to that the tropical beaches, scenery and affordability, which have made it a magnet for tourists.

So what is it that makes so many people desperate to leave?

Vietnam, a one-party Communist state, sits near the bottom of most human rights and freedom indexes. No political opposition is permitted. The few dissidents who raise their voices are harassed and jailed.

Yet most Vietnamese have learned to live with the ruling party, which leans for legitimacy on its record of delivering growth. Very few who go to Britain are fleeing repression.

Nor are the migrants generally fleeing poverty. The World Bank has singled Vietnam out for its almost unrivalled record of poverty reduction among its 100 million people.

Rather, they are trying to escape what some call “relative deprivation”.

Despite its impressive economic record, Vietnam started far behind most of its Asian neighbours, with growth only taking off well after the end of the Cold War in 1989. As a result, average wages, at around £230 a month, are much lower than in nearby countries like Thailand, and three-quarters of the 55-million-strong workforce are in informal jobs, with no security or social protection.

“There is a huge disparity between big cities like Hanoi and rural areas,” says Nguyen Khac Giang, a Vietnamese academic at the Institute of South East Asian Studies-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. “For a majority of workers with limited skills, there is a glass ceiling. Even if you work 14 hours a day you cannot save enough to build a house or start a family.”

This was what Phuong felt, despite coming from Haiphong, Vietnam’s third-largest city.

Her sister Hien had made it to Britain nine years earlier, smuggled inside a shipping container. It had cost her around £22,000 but she was able to pay that back in two years, working long hours in kitchens and nail salons. Hien married a Vietnamese man who already had British citizenship, and they had a daughter; all three are now UK citizens.

In Haiphong, jobs were scarce after the pandemic and at 38 years old, Phuong wanted what her sister had in London: the ability to save money and start a family.

“She could survive in Vietnam, but she wanted a home, a better life, with more security,” explains Hien.

Lan Anh Hoang, a professor in development studies at Melbourne University, has spent years studying migration patterns. “Twenty to thirty years ago, the urge to migrate overseas was not as strong, because everyone was poor,” she says. “People were happy with one buffalo, one motorbike and three meals a day.

“Suddenly a few people successfully migrated to countries like Germany or the UK, to work on cannabis farms or open nail salons. They started to send a lot of money home. Even though the economic conditions of those left behind have not changed, they feel poor relative to all these families with migrants working in Europe.”

This tradition of seeking better lives overseas goes back to the 1970s and 80s, when Vietnam was allied to the Soviet Union following the defeat of US forces in the south.

The state-led economy had hit rock bottom. Millions were destitute; some areas suffered food shortages. Tens of thousands left to work in eastern bloc countries like Poland, East Germany and Hungary.

This was also a time when 800,000 mainly ethnic Chinese boat people fled the communist party’s repressive actions, making perilous sea journeys across the South China Sea, eventually resettling in the USA, Australia or Europe.

The economic hardships of that time threatened the legitimacy of the communist party, and in 1986 it made an abrupt turn, abandoning the attempt to build a socialist system and throwing the doors open to global markets. The new theme of Vietnam’s national story was to catch up, and get rich, any way possible. For many Vietnamese, that meant going abroad.

“Money is God in Vietnam,” says Lan Anh Hoang. “The meaning of ‘the good life’ is primarily anchored in your ability to accumulate wealth. There is also a strong obligation to help your family, especially in central Vietnam.

“That is why the whole extended family pools resources to finance the migration of one young person because they believe they can send back large sums of money, and facilitate the migration of other people.”

Drive through the flat rice fields of Nghe An, one of Vietnam’s poorer provinces lying south of Hanoi, and where there were once smaller concrete houses, you will now find large, new houses with gilded gates. More are under construction, thanks, in part, to money earned in the West.

The new houses are prominent symbols of success for returnees who have done well overseas.

Vietnam is now enjoying substantial inflows of foreign investment, as it is considered an alternative to China for companies wanting to diversify their supply chains. This investment is even beginning to reach places like Nghe An, too.

Foxconn, a corporate giant that manufactures iPhones, is one of several foreign businesses building factories in Nghe An, offering thousands of new jobs.

But monthly salaries for unskilled workers only reach around £300, even with overtime. That is not enough to rival the enticing stories of the money to be made in the UK, as told by the people smugglers.

The business of organising the travel for those wishing to leave the province is now a very profitable one. Publicly, companies present themselves as either travel agents or brokers for officially approved overseas labour contracts, but in practice many also offer to smuggle people to the UK via other European countries. They usually paint a rosy picture of life in Britain, and say little about the risks and hardships they will face.

“Brokers” typically charge between £15,000 and £35,000 for the trip to the UK. Hungary is a popular route into the EU because it offers guest-worker visas to Vietnamese passport holders. The higher the price, the easier and faster the journey.

The communist authorities in Vietnam have been urged by the US, the UK and UN agencies to do more to control the smuggling business.

Remittances from abroad earn Vietnam around £13bn a year, and the government has a policy of promoting migration for work, although only through legal channels, mostly to richer Asian countries.

More than 130,000 Vietnamese workers left in 2024 under the official scheme. But the fees for these contracts can be high, and the wages are much lower than they can earn in Britain.

The huge risks of the illicit routes used to reach the UK were brought home in 2019, when 39 Vietnamese people were found dead in Essex, having suffocated while being transported inside a sealed container across the Channel.

Yet this has not noticeably reduced demand for the smugglers’ services. The increased scrutiny of container traffic has, however, pushed them to find alternative Channel crossings, which helps explain the sharp rise in Vietnamese people using small boats.

“The tragedy of the 39 deaths in 2019 is almost forgotten,” says the cousin of one of the victims, Le Van Ha. He left behind a wife, two young children and a large debt from the cost of the journey. His cousin, who does not want to be named, says attitudes in their community have not changed.

“People hardly care anymore. It’s a sad reality, but it is the truth.

“I see the trend of leaving continuing to grow, not diminish. For people here, the success stories still outweigh the risks.”

Three of the victims came from the agricultural province of Quang Binh. The headteacher of a secondary school in the region, who also asked not to be named, says that 80% of his students who graduate soon plan to go overseas.

“Most parents here come from low-income backgrounds,” he explains. “The idea of [encouraging their child to] broaden their knowledge and develop their skills is not the priority.

“For them, sending a child abroad is largely about earning money quickly, and getting it sent back home to improve the family’s living standards.”

In March the UK Home Office started a social media campaign to deter Vietnamese people from illegal migration. Some efforts were also made by the Vietnamese government to alert people to the risks of using people-smugglers. But until there are more appealing economic opportunities in those provinces, it is likely the campaigns will have little impact.

“They cannot run these campaigns just once,” argues Diep Vuong, co-founder of Pacific Links, an anti-trafficking organisation. “It’s a constant investment in education that’s needed.”

She has first-hand experience, leaving Vietnam to the US in 1980 as part of the exodus of Vietnamese boat people.

“In Vietnam, people believe they have to work hard, to do everything for their families. That is like a shackle which they cannot easily escape. But with enough good information put out over the years, they might start to change this attitude.”

But the campaigns are up against a powerful narrative. Those who go overseas and fail – and many do – are often ashamed, and keep quiet about what went wrong. Those who succeed come back to places like Nghe An and flaunt their new-found wealth. As for the tragedy of the 39 people who died in a shipping container, the prevailing view in Nghe An is still that they were just unlucky.

Multi-billionaire Elon Musk has accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of being “deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes”.

Mr Musk has published a series of posts on X suggesting Starmer failed to deal with the grooming gang scandal while head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) between 2008 and 2013.

In response, Sir Keir has accused critics of “spreading lies and misinformation” and claims he tackled prosecutions “head on”.

The row between Mr Musk and Sir Keir centres around a series of high-profile cases where groups of men – mainly of Pakistani descent – were convicted of sexually abusing and raping predominantly young white girls around the UK.

In 2012 The Times newspaper investigated Rotherham grooming gangs, which led to a major inquiry.

At least 1,400 children were subjected to appalling sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, according to a 2014 report written by Prof Alexis Jay.

The report made headlines in the UK and around the world and led to major debates in Parliament.

Similar scandals also occurred in other towns, including Oldham, Oxford, Rochdale and Telford, leading to a national inquiry into child sexual abuse, which was also led by Prof Jay.

The cases sparked investigations into alleged failures to properly address the crimes and support victims.

The CPS, an independent body, prosecutes criminal cases in England and Wales.

After the police investigate crimes and present their findings, the CPS decides whether to prosecute based on evidence and public interest.

Sir Keir was appointed head of the CPS in 2008 and held the role for five years. He became an MP in 2015.

The CPS was criticised for a decision not to proceed with a prosecution in Rochdale on the basis that it viewed the main victim as “unreliable” following an investigation between August 2008 and August 2009.

That decision was overturned later by Nazir Afzal in 2011 after being appointed by Sir Keir as the CPS chief prosecutor for north-west England.

Speaking to BBC Verify, Mr Afzal said that the view of prosecutors not to proceed to trial at the time was “if the police aren’t happy that she will give credible evidence then we’re not happy either”.

He went on to say that he had reviewed and reversed the decision as “I believed what she [the victim] was saying”.

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But this is not the only instance where the CPS has faced criticism.

Prof Jay’s report into the Rotherham cases said the police would often cite the CPS as being unwilling to prosecute alleged perpetrators, but they said that it had been “much more helpful” later on.

A 2013 report from the Home Affairs Committee said that “unlike many other official agencies implicated in this issue”, the CPS had “readily admitted that victims had been let down by them and have attempted both to discover the cause of this systematic failure and to improve the way things are done so as to avoid a repetition of such events”.

It added: “Mr Starmer has striven to improve the treatment of victims of sexual assault within the criminal justice system throughout his term as Director of Public Prosecution (DPP).”

Maggie Oliver, a former Manchester detective who now campaigns for victims of child sex abuse, told BBC Verify that the CPS “bear a great deal of responsibility for the failures around this issue”, including bringing inadequate charges and blaming victims.

She added that while there was now much more awareness around the issue, “in my foundation we still see individual cases subjected to massive failures in the systems”.

We have been unable to find any direct criticism of Sir Keir personally in any of the reports on the scandal, nor can we identify any suggestions that he himself made any decisions not to prosecute.

The prime minister has robustly defended his record as the former head of the CPS, telling journalists he:

• Changed the prosecution approach to “challenge myths and stereotypes” that had stopped victims from being heard
• Left office when the CPS had the highest number of child sex abuse prosecutions on record
• Reopened cases that had been closed
• Brought the first prosecution of an Asian grooming gang

It is correct that he revised the guidance on child sexual exploitation in 2013 to make future prosecutions easier.

Previously, victims may not have been viewed as credible if they had not complained immediately, if they had used drugs or alcohol or if they had dressed or acted in particular ways.

On child sexual abuse prosecutions, we found CPS figures dating back to 2007 but the early years are now only on archived web pages – as they are no longer on the CPS website.

They show that the “number of prosecutions for child sexual abuse flagged cases” did rise from that year to reach 4,794 in April 2010 to March 2011 – a peak for Sir Keir’s time in charge of the CPS.

That total was subsequently surpassed – there were nearly 7,200 prosecutions in 2016-2017.

BBC Verify has asked Downing Street for more detail on the data behind the prime minister’s claim.

On reopening cases, Mr Afzal said that the creation of a national panel to revisit cases under Sir Keir had been a success.

“That panel also included – for the first time ever – external representatives. It revisited dozens of cases that were then restarted,” he said.

In defending his record, the prime minister referred only to the broad category of child sex abuse prosecution data.

When it comes to child grooming gangs, there is no single clear data set because no specific offence exists.

Instead, offenders can be prosecuted for causing or facilitating sexual exploitation, or for committing specific offences such as rape and indecent assault.

Information on child grooming-related prosecutions appear in Prof Jay’s 2022 report into child sexual exploitation by organised networks – a government-commissioned report into institutional child abuse failings published in 2022.

The report mentions several “significant prosecutions” between 2010 and 2014, including 35 convictions which took place while Sir Keir was DPP:

• November 2010 – five men convicted in Rotherham
• November 2010 – 11 men convicted in Derbyshire
• 2008-2010 – three men convicted in Cornwall
• May 2012 – nine men from Rochdale and Oldham convicted
• June 2013 – seven men from Oxford convicted

A Times report from 2011 identified 17 grooming gang prosecutions since 1997.

It said 14 of them took place during the previous three years and involved the on-street grooming of girls aged 11 to 16 by groups of men across 13 towns and cities.

A report by the National Police Chiefs’ Council last year concluded that 5% of child sexual abuse and exploitation crimes were group-based – but more specific figures weren’t disclosed.

BBC Verify has sent a freedom of information request to the CPS asking for a yearly breakdown of prosecutions for child grooming related offences.

We have also contacted the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Rudy Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and lawyer to Donald Trump, has been held in contempt of court for failing to pay damages as part of a defamation lawsuit.

A judge found that Giuliani defamed two Georgia election workers over false claims they tampered with votes during the 2020 presidential election. He was ordered to pay $148m (£116m).

The first transfer of $11m was originally scheduled to take place in October, as a down payment to poll workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea Moss.

Giuliani argued that he had largely complied with the judgement, but a New York City judge ruled Monday that he “wilfully violated an unambiguous order of the court”.

Lawyers for the women have said they have received only a fraction of the assets.

Freeman and Moss filed a lawsuit against Giuliani in 2021, accusing him of destroying their reputations and arguing that his statements led to a torrent of abuse.

The long-time ally of President-elect Donald Trump had made repeated false claims that a surveillance video of the pair showed evidence of ballot tampering. He claimed they were passing USB drives back and forth, when in fact they were passing a box of mints.

He later conceded he made defamatory statements, and a jury ordered him to pay $73m in compensation and $75m as punishment.

Giuliani filed for bankruptcy shortly after the decision, but the case was dismissed, leaving Trump’s former lawyer without protection from creditors.

A judge later ordered him to turn over his Manhattan apartment, more than two dozen watches, a jersey signed by former New York Yankees centre fielder Joe DiMaggio, and other valuables to the two Georgia election workers as part of the defamation penalty.

During a two-day hearing, Giuliani said the whereabouts of some of the items, such as the DiMaggio jersey, are unknown.

US District Judge Lewis Liman said he would decide on punishment at a later date.

Giuliani faces a further court hearing over whether his Yankees World Series rings and his Florida home should be handed over to help pay his debt to the election workers.

He has also been indicted in Georgia and Arizona on criminal charges related to attempts to overthrow the result of the 2020 election.

Giuliani, a Republican, was first elected mayor of New York City in 1993 and was in charge at the time of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. In 2008 he ran for president, and later became a Trump advisor.

The US has added several Chinese technology companies, including gaming and social media giant Tencent and battery maker CATL, to a list of businesses it says work with China’s military.

The list serves as a warning to American companies and organisations about the risks of doing business with Chinese entities.

While inclusion does not mean an immediate ban, it can add pressure on the US Treasury Department to sanction the firms.

Tencent and CATL have denied involvement with the Chinese military, while Beijing said the decision amounted to “unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies”.

The Department of Defense’s (DOD) list of Chinese military companies, which is formally known as the Section 1260H list, is updated annually and now includes 134 firms.

It is part of Washington’s approach to counteracting what it sees as Beijing’s efforts to increase its military power by using technology from Chinese firms, universities and research programmes.

In response to the latest announcement Tencent, which owns the messaging app WeChat, said its inclusion on the list was “clearly a mistake.”

“We are not a military company or supplier. Unlike sanctions or export controls, this listing has no impact on our business,” a spokesperson for the company told the BBC.

CATL also called the designation a mistake and said it “is not engaged in any military related activities.”

“The US’s practices violate the market competition principles and international economic and trade rules that it has always advocated, and undermine the confidence of foreign companies in investing and operating in the United States,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington.

The Pentagon had come under pressure from US lawmakers to add some of the firms, including CATL, to the list.

This pressure came as US car making giant Ford said it would invest $2bn (£1.6bn) to build a battery plant in Michigan. It has said it plans to license technology from CATL.

Ford did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment.

The announcement comes as relations between the world’s two biggest economies remain strained.

Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump, who has previously taken a tough stance against Beijing, is due to return to the White House this month.

The Pentagon was sued last last year by drone maker DJI and Lidar-maker Hesai Technologies over their inclusion on the list. They both remain on the updated list.

Tencent shares were trading around 7% lower in Hong Kong on Tuesday. CATL was down by about 4%.

At least five people have died in a winter storm that has seized a swathe of the US in its icy grip, leading to mass school closures, travel chaos and power cuts.

Seven US states declared emergencies: Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Arkansas.

More than 2,300 flights have been cancelled, with nearly 9,000 delays also reported owing to the extreme weather caused by the polar vortex of icy cold air that usually circles the North Pole.

Around 190,000 people had no power early on Tuesday across states in the storm’s path, according to Poweroutage.us. Snow and sleet is forecast to continue through the day in much of the north-eastern US, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

While the precipitation will then dissipate, cold Arctic air is expected to keep conditions icy across a chunk of the country for several more weeks.

In Washington DC – where lawmakers met on Monday to certify Donald Trump’s win in November’s election – about 5-9in (13-23cm) of snow fell, with up to a foot recorded in parts of nearby Maryland and Virginia.

In front of the Washington Monument, hundreds of local residents gathered at a local park for a snowball fight, a now 15-year-old tradition.

“Just having fun,” one local man told the BBC. “Never done a snowball fight before.”

Former US Olympic skier Clare Egan was found cross-country skiing on the National Mall, the central thoroughfare of the US capital city.

She told the Associated Press she had thought “my skiing days were maybe behind me”, after moving to the city.

Washington DC’s weather emergency is declared until the early hours of Tuesday as a result of the system, which was named Winter Storm Blair by the Weather Channel.

Children who had been due to go back to classes on Monday after the winter holiday break were instead enjoying a snow day as school districts closed from Maryland to Kansas.

In other parts of the US, the winter storm brought with it dangerous road conditions.

In Missouri, the state’s highway patrol said at least 365 people had crashed on Sunday, leaving dozens injured and at least one dead.

In nearby Kansas, one of the worst-hit states, local news reported that two people were killed in a car crash during the storm.

In Houston, Texas, a person was found dead from cold weather in front of a bus stop on Monday morning, authorities said.

In Virginia, where 300 car crashes were reported between midnight and Monday morning, authorities warned local residents to avoid driving in large parts of the state.

At least one motorist was killed, according to local media reports.

Matthew Cappucci, a senior meteorologist at the weather app MyRadar, told the BBC that Kansas City had seen the heaviest snow in 32 years.

Some areas near the Ohio River turned to “skating rinks” in the frigid temperatures, he added.

“The ploughs are getting stuck, the police are getting stuck, everybody’s getting stuck – stay home,” he said.

Senegal and Chad have reacted strongly to remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron about African countries being ungrateful over France’s role in helping fight militant jihadist insurgencies.

On Monday, Macron said that Sahel states “forgot” to thank France for its role, amid the continuing withdrawal of French troops from West African countries.

He said no Sahelian nation would be a sovereign nation without France’s intervention that prevented them from falling under the control of militants.

In response, Chad’s Foreign Minister Abderaman Koulamallah said Macron comments had revealed his contempt for Africa.

“Chad expresses its deep concern following the remarks made recently by [the French president], which reflect a contemptuous attitude towards Africa and Africans,” he said in a statement on national TV.

He said “French leaders must learn to respect the African people and recognise the value of their sacrifices”.

• Is France to blame for instability in West Africa?

Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko said France had in the past contributed to “destabilising certain African countries such as Libya” which had “disastrous consequences” for the region’s security.

“France has neither the capacity nor the legitimacy to ensure Africa’s security and sovereignty,” he said in a statement.

Macron made his comments at an annual ambassadors’ conference in Paris, saying France was reorganising its strategic interests in the region and rejected the idea that it had been forced to withdraw from Africa.

French troops were sent to Mali in 2013 in response to an Islamist insurgency. A year later the mission was extended to take in other countries in the region, including Niger and Burkina Faso.

“We were right [to deploy]. I think someone forgot to say thank you. It’s ok it will come with time,” Macron said on Monday.

“But I say this for all the African heads of state who have not had the courage in the face of public opinion to hold that view. None of them would be a sovereign country today if the French army hadn’t deployed in the region.”

Sonko said that in the case of Senegal’s decision to ask French troops to leave, Macron’s remarks were “totally wrong”.

He said there had been no negotiation with France regarding the move to close its military bases in the country.

He said and the decision had stemmed from Senegal’s “sole will as a free, independent and sovereign country”.

Both Sonko and Koulamallah also cited the role of African soldiers towards the liberation of France in the world wars.

“Had African soldiers, sometimes forcibly mobilised, mistreated and ultimately betrayed, not been deployed during the Second World War to defend France, it would, perhaps still be German today,” Sonko said.

Chad, Senegal and Ivory Coast have recently ended security agreements with France – while Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger told French troops to leave following coups.

France’s influence in the region has been waning in recent years, amid accusations of neo-colonialism and exploitative relationships with their former colonies.

The junta-led governments in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso have moved closer to Russia after the French withdrawal from their countries.

On Monday, Chad’s foreign minister said France’s contribution in the country was limited to “its own strategic interests” even as Chad had grappled with instability and other issues during their 60- year partnership.

Chad ended its defence agreement with France in November, saying it was “time for Chad to assert its full sovereignty and redefine its strategic partnerships according to national priorities”.

• The rise of military coups in Africa
• Why does France have military bases in Africa?
• Niger junta takes control of French uranium mine
• Ivory Coast says French troops to leave West African nation
• Chad cuts military agreement with France

Eleven Yemeni detainees have been moved from the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay to Oman.

The move has left 15 detainees in the prison in Cuba – the smallest number at any point in its history.

In a statement, the Department of Defense thanked Oman for supporting US efforts “focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing” the facility.

None of the men captured after the 9/11 terror attacks had been charged with any crimes in their more than two decades in detention.

The transfer, which reportedly happened in the early hours on Monday, comes days before the accused mastermind of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is scheduled to plead guilty, following a deal with federal officials to avoid the death penalty.

Monday’s transfer of the Yemeni detainees is the largest to a single country at one time under President Joe Biden.

Efforts to resettle the group in Oman began years ago, but the US has said that Yemen, which is locked in a civil war, was too unstable for repatriation.

Those transferred from Guantanamo include Moath al-Alwi, who was cleared for release in 2022 and had become known for building model boats with objects found at the prison, and Shaqawi al Hajj, who went on repeated hunger strikes to protest his detention.

The men were cleared for transfer by federal national security review panels, which determined that doing so was “consistent with the national security interests of the United States”, the Defense Department said.

The transfer came less than a week after Ridah Bin Saleh al-Yazidi, one of the prison’s original detainees in January 2002, was repatriated to Tunisia.

The Defense Department said three of the 15 remaining detainees also are eligible for transfer.

The military prison is part of a US naval base complex in southeastern Cuba. It was established by the Bush administration in 2002, following the 9/11 attacks, to hold suspects captured in counter-terrorism operations. At its peak, it held about 800 detainees.

Controversy has centred around the treatment of detainees and how long they were held without being charged.

As president, Barack Obama pledged to close the prison during his terms. He said the prison is contrary to US values, undermining the nation’s standing in the world – a standing based on support for the rule of law.

Obama, who left office in 2017, also argued that its existence harms partnerships with countries needed to help the US fight terrorism and that it helps fuel the recruitment of jihadists.

But while in office, Obama faced opposition in Congress to shuttering the prison – some of it due to questions about what would happen to the existing prison population. He transferred or ordered the release of more than 100 detainees to other countries.

US Congress has not allowed the transfer of detainees to US states and has blocked their transfer to certain countries, including those with ongoing conflicts like Yemen.

Efforts to lower the prison’s population and close it halted under Donald Trump who signed an executive order to keep it open during his first term. Trump said efforts to release detainees or close the facility made the US look weak on terrorism.

Since taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden has worked to remove more detainees from the facility in hopes of shuttering it – though that appears unlikely before Trump takes office later this month.

The former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, Mark Carney, says he is “considering” entering the race to replace Justin Trudeau as the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party.

Trudeau said on Monday he would step down after nine years as Canadian prime minister – following growing pressure from his own party and poor opinion polling.

Mr Carney, 59, is one of several names in the frame to replace Trudeau, along with his former deputy Chrystia Freeland and Transport Minister Anita Anand.

Trudeau says he will stay in office until a new leader is chosen. In the meantime, the Canadian parliament has been prorogued – or suspended – until 24 March.

It is likely the Liberals will try to have a new leader in place by the end of the prorogation period – though the timeline and procedure remain unclear. Trudeau has promised a “robust, nationwide, competitive process”.

Mr Carney, who leads an asset management firm and has worked as a Trudeau adviser, told the UK’s Financial Times newspaper: “I’ll be considering this decision closely with my family over the coming days.”

He has long been considered a contender for the top job, though he has never held public office despite his economic background.

During his career as a central banker – at the Bank of Canada from 2007-2013 and then at the Bank of England from 2013-2020 – Mr Carney was influential in the response of two major economies to the global financial crisis.

He also led efforts to support the UK economy through its exit from the European Union and the outbreak of Covid-19.

• Why Trudeau era has come to an end now
• What next for Canada?
• Other names in the frame to replace Trudeau

Whoever succeeds Trudeau in Canada could face an immediate test. The country must have its next federal election by October, but it is considered likely that a vote will be called before that. The opposition Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, currently enjoy a double-digit lead in the opinion polls.

Trudeau himself recently admitted that he had long been trying to recruit Mr Carney to his team, most recently as finance minister. “He would be an outstanding addition at a time when Canadians need good people to step up in politics,” he said last year.

Mr Carney would also bring expertise on environmental matters through his role as the United Nations special envoy on climate action, recently calling the goal of net zero “the greatest commercial opportunity of our time”.

He is a champion of some Liberal policies that have been unpopular within the country’s conservative circles like the federal carbon tax policy, the party’s signature climate policy that critics argue is a financial burden for Canadians.

He has also been critical of Poilievre, saying the Conservative leader’s vision for the future of the country is “without a plan” and “just slogans”.

Other candidates believed to be credible replacements for Trudeau include his former deputy Chrystia Freeland, who resigned from the cabinet after a rift with the prime minister’s office in December, and Transport Minister Anita Anand, a lawyer who was elected in 2019.

Lawyers for Donald Trump have asked the Department of Justice (DoJ) to not release a special counsel’s report setting out its investigations into the US president-elect.

Jack Smith led two probes into Trump, one on alleged attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and another on his apparent mishandling of classified documents.

Both cases have been shelved, but Mr Smith’s detailed report was due to be released in the coming days.

But in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Trump’s lawyers have urged him to end the “weaponisation of the justice system” and hand the report to them.

The correspondence alleges Mr Smith did not have the legal authority to submit the report because he was unconstitutionally picked to do the job and was politically motivated. Mr Smith is yet to publicly respond.

Trump’s legal team received a draft copy of the report at the weekend.

The two investigations led to criminal indictments against Trump but both have since been dismissed, partly due to a longstanding DoJ policy not to prosecute a sitting president.

The former president had pleaded not guilty and denied all wrongdoing.

Federal regulations decree that any special counsel probe must conclude with a report to the justice department and Garland has previously said he would release all such reports.

• What happens to all of Trump’s legal cases now?
• Analysis: Triumph over legal cases seals Trump’s comeback
• Trump still faces New York sentencing – after judge refuses to delay

During his time away from the White House, Trump faced an array of legal cases, which were successfully delayed and thwarted by his lawyers and allies.

The administration of the Democratic president, Joe Biden, faced accusations from Trump’s opponents that they brought cases against the Republican too slowly, while Trump’s supporters argued that the prosecutions were politically motivated.

One of Mr Smith’s two cases concerned Trump’s attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 election, which he lost to Biden.

Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges, and the case ended up in legal limbo after the Supreme Court ruled that Trump was partially immune from criminal prosecution over official acts committed while in office.

Mr Smith later refiled his case, but wound it down after Trump’s 2024 election win.

He was also leading a case against Trump over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House following his first presidency – charges that Trump also denied.

This case faced a roadblock of its own when the Trump-appointed judge dismissed the charges, arguing Mr Smith was improperly appointed to lead the case. Again, Mr Smith hit back – this time with an appeal – but later abandoned this, too.

DoJ guidance prevents the criminal prosecution of a sitting president. Mr Smith clarified that this legal protection also applied to the prosecution of a private citizen who was subsequently elected president.

The news was celebrated by the Trump campaign, which hailed it as a “major victory for the rule of law”.

Mr Smith is also reportedly expected to leave his job before Trump returns to the White House on 20 January and carries out a threat of sacking him.

Despite his recent legal wins, Trump still faces sentencing on Friday after being found guilty in New York last year on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up payments made to a porn star.

With less than two weeks until Trump is re-inaugurated as US president, the judge has refused a request to delay, although he has previously made clear he will not consider giving Trump a custodial term.

In recent weeks, scenes of hospitals in China overrun with masked people have made their rounds on social media, sparking worries of another pandemic.

Beijing has since acknowledged a surge in cases of the flu-like human metapneumovirus (HMPV), especially among children, and it attributed this to a seasonal spike.

But HMPV is not like Covid-19, public health experts have said, noting that the virus has been around for decades, with almost every child being infected by their fifth birthday.

However, in some very young children and people with weakened immune systems, it can cause more serious illness. Here is what you need to know.

HMPV is a virus that will lead to a mild upper respiratory tract infection – practically indistinguishable from flu – for most people.

First identified in the Netherlands in 2001, the virus spreads through direct contact between people or when someone touches surfaces contaminated with it.

Symptoms for most people include cough, fever and nasal congestion.

The very young, including children under two, are most vulnerable to the virus, along with those with weakened immune systems, including the elderly and those with advanced cancer, says Hsu Li Yang, an infectious diseases physician in Singapore.

If infected, a “small but significant proportion” among the immunocompromised will develop more severe disease where the lungs are affected, with wheezing, breathlessness and symptoms of croup.

“Many will require hospital care, with a smaller proportion at risk of dying from the infection,” Dr Hsu said.

Like many respiratory infections, HMPV is most active during late winter and spring – some experts say this is because the viruses survive better in the cold and they pass more easily from one person to another as people stay indoors more often.

In northern China, the current HMPV spike coincides with low temperatures that are expected to last until March.

In fact many countries in the northern hemisphere, including but not limited to China, are experiencing an increased prevalence of HMPV, said Jacqueline Stephens, an epidemiologist at Flinders University in Australia.

“While this is concerning, the increased prevalence is likely the normal seasonal increase seen in winter,” she said.

Data from health authorities in the US and UK shows that these countries, too, have been experiencing a spike in HMPV cases since October last year.

Fears of a Covid-19 style pandemic are overblown, the experts said, noting that pandemics are typically caused by novel pathogens, which is not the case for HMPV.

HMPV is globally present and has been around for decades. This means people across the world have “some degree of existing immunity due to previous exposure”, Dr Hsu said.

“Almost every child will have at least one infection with HMPV by their fifth birthday and we can expect to go onto to have multiple reinfections throughout life,” says Paul Hunter, a medical professor at University of East Anglia in England.

“So overall, I don’t think there is currently any signs of a more serious global issue.”

Still, Dr Hsu advises standard general precautions such as wearing a mask in crowded places, avoiding crowds where possible if one is at higher risk of more severe illness from respiratory virus infections, practising good hand hygiene, and getting the flu vaccine.

Under growing pressure from his own party, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced he will step down and end his nine-year stretch as leader.

Trudeau said he would stay on in office until his Liberal Party can choose a new leader, and that parliament would be prorogued – or suspended – until 24 March.

“This country deserves a real choice in the next election and it has become clear to me that if I’m having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election,” he said during a press conference Monday.

Trudeau’s personal unpopularity with Canadians had become an increasing drag on his party’s fortunes in advance of federal elections later this year.

“Last night, over dinner, I told my kids about the decision that I’m sharing with you today,” he told the news conference in Ottawa.

“I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process,” he said.

The president of the Liberal Party, Sachit Mehra, said a meeting of the party’s board of directors would be held this week to begin the process of selecting a new leader.

Who might replace Trudeau as Liberal Party leader?

Why the Trudeau era has come to an end now

What happens next for Canada?

In a statement, he added: “Liberals across the country are immensely grateful to Justin Trudeau for more than a decade of leadership to our Party and the country.”

“As Prime Minister, his vision delivered transformational progress for Canadians,” he said, citing programmes his government has implemented like the Canada Child Benefit and the establishment of dental care and pharmacare coverage for some medication.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said “nothing has changed” following Trudeau’s resignation.

“Every Liberal MP and Leadership contender supported EVERYTHING Trudeau did for 9 years, and now they want to trick voters by swapping in another Liberal face to keep ripping off Canadians for another 4 years, just like Justin,” Poilievre wrote on X.

Trudeau, 53, had faced growing calls to quit from inside his Liberal Party, which ramped up in December when deputy prime minister and long-time ally Chrystia Freeland abruptly resigned.

In a public resignation letter, Freeland cited US President-elect Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs on Canadian goods, and accused Trudeau of not doing enough to address the “grave challenge” posed by Trump’s proposals.

Trump has promised to impose a tax of 25% on imported Canadian goods – which economists have warned would significantly hurt Canada’s economy – unless the country takes steps to increase security on its shared border.

Trudeau said Monday that he had hoped Freeland would have continued as deputy prime minister, “but she chose otherwise”.

Canada has since announced that it will implement sweeping new security measures along the country’s US border in response to the threat.

In an online post, Trump claimed that pressure over tariffs led to Trudeau’s resignation and repeated his jibe that Canada should become “the 51st State”.

“If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them,” he wrote.

Since 2019, the Liberal Party has governed as a minority party.

Following Freeland’s resignation, Trudeau lost the backing of parties that had previously helped keep the Liberals in power – the left-leaning New Democrats, who had a support agreement with the Liberals, and the Quebec nationalist party, Bloc Quebecois.

The largest opposition party, the Conservatives, have maintained a significant two-digit lead over the Liberals in polls for months – suggesting that if a general election were held today, the Liberals could be in for a significant defeat.

Liberals will now choose a new leader to take the party into the next election, which must be held on or before 20 October.

A senior government official told the BBC that the race is an open contest, and that the Prime Minister’s Office will fully stay out of the process, leaving it to Liberal Party members to decide their future.

Speaking to reporters, the Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-François Blanchet suggested that an early election be called once the Liberals choose their new leader.

Trudeau is the son of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who dominated the country’s politics in the 1970s and ’80s.

The younger Trudeau became prime minister after the Liberal Party won a sweeping majority in 2015 amid a promise to usher in a new, progressive era of “Sunny Ways”.

His record includes a commitment to gender equality in his cabinet, which continues to be 50% women; progress on reconciliation with Indigenous people in Canada; bringing in a national carbon tax; implementing a tax-free child benefit for families; and legalising recreational cannabis.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak praised Trudeau’s track record on indigenous issues following his resignation, saying in a statement that he “has taken meaningful steps to address issues that matter to First Nations”.

“While much work remains, these actions have laid a foundation for future governments to build upon.”

Clouds began to hang over Trudeau’s government in recent years, which weathered a series of often self-inflicted scandals, including a controversy over a deal with a Canadian firm facing corruption charges and photos that emerged of the prime minister wearing brownface makeup prior to his time in politics.

Vaccine mandates and other restrictions were also met with fierce backlash by some Canadians, leading to the Freedom Convoy truck protests in early 2022. Trudeau eventually used unprecedented emergency powers to remove the protesters.

As Canada began to emerge from the pandemic, housing and food prices skyrocketed, and his government pulled back on ambitious immigration targets as public services began to show strain.

By late 2024, Trudeau’s approval rating was at its lowest – just 22% of Canadians saying they thought he was doing a good job, according to one polling tracker.

In Ottawa, a small group of protestors danced outside Parliament Hill in celebration of his resignation.

One passer-by, however, said he thinks things were fine under Trudeau’s watch.

“I’m a carpenter,” Hames Gamarra, who is from British Columbia, told the BBC. “I mind my own business, I get my wages, I pay the bills. It’s been OK.”

Another Canadian, Marise Cassivi, said it feels like the end of an era. Asked if she feels any hints of sadness, she replied: “No.”

“It’s the right thing.”

Meta is abandoning the use of independent fact-checkers on Facebook and Instagram, replacing them with X-style “community notes” where commenting on the accuracy of posts is left to users.

In a video posted alongside a blog post by the company on Tuesday, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said third-party moderators were “too politically biased” and it was “time to get back to our roots around free expression”.

Joel Kaplan, who is replacing Sir Nick Clegg as Meta’s head of global affairs, wrote that the company’s reliance on independent moderators was “well-intentioned” but had too often resulted in the censoring of users.

However, campaigners against hate speech online have reacted with dismay – and suggested the changed is really motivated by getting on the right side of Donald Trump.

“Zuckerberg’s announcement is a blatant attempt to cozy up to the incoming Trump administration – with harmful implications”, said Ava Lee, from Global Witness, a campaign group which describes itself as seeking to hold big tech to account.

“Claiming to avoid “censorship” is a political move to avoid taking responsibility for hate and disinformation that platforms encourage and facilitate”, she added.

Meta’s current fact checking programme, introduced in 2016, refers posts that appear to be false or misleading to independent organisations to assess their credibility.

Posts flagged as inaccurate could display labels offering viewers more information on why, and be moved lower in users’ feeds.

That will now be replaced “in the US first” by community notes. Meta says it has no immediate plans to make changes in the EU. The BBC has asked what its intentions are for the UK are but the company has not yet commented.

The new system – which the tech giant says it has seen “work on X” – involves people of different viewpoints agreeing on notes which add context or clarifications to controversial posts.

The UK’s Molly Rose Foundation described the announcement as a “major concern for safety online.”

“We are urgently clarifying the scope of these measures, including whether this will apply to suicide, self-harm and depressive content”, its chairman Ian Russell said.

“These moves could have dire consequences for many children and young adults.”

Meta’s blog post said it would also “undo the mission creep” of rules and policies -highlighting removal of restrictions on subjects including “immigration, gender and gender identity” – saying these have stemmed political discussion and debate.

“It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms”, it said.

The changes come as technology firms and their executives prepare for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on 20 January.

Trump has previously been a vocal critic of Meta and its approach to content moderation, calling Facebook “an enemy of the people” in March 2024.

But relations between the two men have since improved – Mr Zuckerberg dined at Trump’s Florida estate in Mar-a-Lago in November. Meta has also donated $1m to an inauguration fund for Trump.

“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritising free speech,” said Mr Zuckerberg in Tuesday’s video.

Mr Kaplan replacing Sir Nick Clegg – a former Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister – as the company’s president of global affairs has also been interpreted as a signal of the firm’s shifting approach to moderation and its changing political priorities.

Kate Klonick, associate professor of law at St John’s University Law School, said the changes reflected a trend “that has seemed inevitable over the last few years, especially since Musk’s takeover of X”.

“The private governance of speech on these platforms has increasingly become a point of politics,” she told BBC News.

Where companies have previously faced pressure to build trust and safety mechanisms to deal with issues like harassment, hate speech, and disinformation, a “radical swing back in the opposite direction” is now underway, she added.

Rescue workers are searching for survivors after a major earthquake killed dozens of people and damaged more than 1,000 buildings in a remote region of Tibet, near Everest.

At least 126 people were killed, with another 188 injured, after the earthquake hit the foothills of the Himalayas at around 09:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Tuesday, according to Chinese state media.

A large-scale rescue operation was launched, with survivors under additional pressure as temperatures were predicted to fall as low as -16C (3.2F) overnight.

Earthquakes are common in the region, which lies on a major geological fault line, but Tuesday’s was one of China’s deadliest in recent years.

The magnitude 7.1 quake, which struck at a depth of 10 kilometres (six miles), according to data from the US Geological Survey, was also felt in Nepal and parts of India, which neighbour Tibet.

Videos published by China’s state broadcaster CCTV showed destroyed houses and collapsed buildings in Tibet’s holy Shigatse city, with rescue workers wading through debris and handing out thick blankets to locals.

Temperatures in Tingri county, near the earthquake’s epicentre in the northern foothills of the Himalayas, were already as low as -8C (17.6F) before night fell, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

Sangji Dangzhi – whose supermarket was damaged in the earthquake – said the damage to homes had been extensive.

“Here the houses are made from dirt so when the earthquake came… lots of houses collapsed,” the 34-year-old told news agency AFP by phone, adding that ambulances had been taking people to hospital through out the day.

A hotel resident in Shigatse told Chinese media outlet Fengmian News that he was jolted awake by a wave of shaking. He said he grabbed his socks and rushed out onto the street, where he saw helicopters circling above.

“It felt like even the bed was being lifted,” he said, adding that he immediately knew it was an earthquake because Tibet recently experienced multiple smaller quakes.

Both power and water in the region have been disrupted. There were more than 40 aftershocks in the first few hours following the quake.

Chinese state media reported the earthquake as having a slightly lesser magnitude of 6.8, causing “obvious” tremors and leading to the damage of more than 1,000 houses.

Jiang Haikun, a researcher at the China Earthquake Networks Center, told CCTV that while another earthquake of around magnitude 5 may still occur, “the likelihood of a larger earthquake is low”.

Sitting at the foot of Mount Everest, which separates Nepal and China, Tingri county is a popular base for climbers preparing to ascend the world’s tallest peak.

Everest sightseeing tours in Tingri, originally scheduled for Tuesday morning, have been cancelled, a tourism staff member told local media, adding that the sightseeing area had been fully closed.

There were three visitors in the sightseeing area who had all been moved to an outdoor area for safety, they said.

Shigatse region, home to 800,000 people, is the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, a key figure of Tibetan Buddhism whose spiritual authority is second only to the Dalai Lama.

The exiled spiritual leader said he had been deeply saddened by news of the quake.

“I offer my prayers for those who have lost their lives and extend my wishes for a swift recovery to all who have been injured,” the Dalai Lama said in a statement.

The current Dalai Lama fled Tibet to India in 1959 after China annexed the region, and has since been seen as an alternative source of power for Tibetans who resent Beijing’s control – which extends to local media and internet access. Many believe China will also choose its own Dalai Lama when the current one dies.

Tibetan Gedhun Choekyi Niyima who was identified as the reincarnated Panchen Lama was disappeared by China when he was six years old. China then chose its own Panchen Lama.

The Chinese air force has launched rescue efforts and drones to the affected area.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has also called for all-out search and rescue efforts to minimise casualties and resettle affected residents.

While strong tremors were felt in Nepal, no major damage or casualties were reported, an official from the National Emergency Operations Centre told BBC Newsday – only “minor damages and cracks on houses”.

The region, which lies near a major fault line of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, is home to frequent seismic activity.

In 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake near Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, killed nearly 9,000 people and injured more than 20,000.

The tremors on Tuesday morning, which sent many Kathmandu residents running out of their houses, brought back memories of that deadly disaster.

“In 2015, when the earthquake hit, I could not even move,” Manju Neupane, a shop owner in Kathmandu, told BBC Nepali. “Today the situation was not scary like that. But, I am scared that another major earthquake may hit us and we will be trapped between tall buildings.”

Donald Trump Jr has arrived in Greenland, two weeks after his father repeated his desire for the US to take control of the autonomous Danish territory.

Before arriving in the capital Nuuk, Trump Jr said he was going on a “personal day-trip” to talk to people, and had no meetings planned with government officials.

US President-elect Donald Trump recently revived a controversy he ignited last month when he said “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for US national security.

“We are not for sale,” the island’s prime minister said at the time. “Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland.” But Mute Egede also told Greenlanders to take their next step towards independence.

With a population of 57,000, Greenland has wide-ranging autonomy – but its economy is largely dependent on subsidies from Copenhagen and it remains part of the kingdom of Denmark.

During his first term as president, Donald Trump expressed an interest in buying the Arctic island. He was rebuffed then, as he has been now.

When asked about Trump Jr’s visit to Greenland, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told Danish TV that “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders” and that only the local population could determine their future.

She agreed that “Greenland is not for sale”, but stressed Denmark needed very close co-operation with the US, a close Nato ally.

Greenland’s prime minister had been due to meet King Frederik in Copenhagen on Wednesday, but the meeting was postponed because of what Egede referred to as “calendar gymnastics”. Danish reports said the prime minister was still due to travel to Copenhagen on Tuesday.

The Danish government’s response to Trump Jr’s visit has frustrated several opposition politicians in Copenhagen.

Conservative MP Rasmus Jarlov posted on social media in English that “this level of disrespect from the coming US president towards very, very loyal allies and friends is record-setting”.

President-elect Trump said earlier on his Truth Social social media platform that his son, and “various representatives”, would travel to Greenland “to visit some of the most magnificent areas and sights”.

Trump added that Greenland and its people “will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our nation”.

“We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside world,” he said. “Make Greenland great again!”

Before leaving on board his father’s private jet, nicknamed Trump Force One, 47-year-old Trump Jr said on his podcast Triggered: “No, I am not buying Greenland” – although he said he did love it there.

The president-elect’s eldest son played a key role during the 2024 US election campaign, frequently appearing at rallies and in the media.

His father’s social media post also included a video featuring an unnamed Greenlander, wearing a red Make America Great Again hat, telling Trump to buy Greenland and free it from “being colonised” by Denmark.

The identity of the man in the clip was unclear, however Danish media reported that he had a jail conviction six years ago for drugs offences.

Greenland lies on the shortest route from North America to Europe, making it strategically important for the US. It is also home to a large American space facility.

• A profile of Greenland

Hours after President-elect Trump repeated his interest in buying Greenland last month, the Danish government announced a huge boost in defence spending for the island. Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen described the announcement’s timing as an “irony of fate”.

On Monday, King Frederik X changed the royal coat of arms to more prominently feature representations of Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

Some have seen this as a rebuke to Trump, but it could also prove controversial with Greenland’s separatist movement.

King Frederik used his New Year’s address to say the Kingdom of Denmark was united “all the way to Greenland”, adding “we belong together”.

But Greenland’s prime minister used his own New Year’s speech to say that the island must break free from “the shackles of colonialism”.

Trump is not the first US president to suggest buying Greenland. The idea was first mooted by the country’s 17th president, Andrew Johnson, during the 1860s.

Separately in recent weeks, Trump has threatened to reassert control over the Panama Canal, one of the world’s most important waterways. He has accused Panama of charging excessive fees for access to it.

Panama’s president responded by saying “every square metre” of the canal and surrounding area belonged to his country.

US actress Aubrey Plaza and the family of her husband Jeff Baena have described his death as an “unimaginable tragedy”.

Director and screenwriter Baena died on Friday at the age of 47. The Los Angeles County medical examiner gave the cause of death as suicide.

The director and screenwriter was found at a home close to the Fern Dell Nature Trail near the Hollywood Hills.

“This is an unimaginable tragedy,” a statement given to the PA news agency said.

“We are deeply grateful to everyone who has offered support.

“Please respect our privacy during this time.”

The statement was attributed to Plaza and the Baena/Stern family.

Baena’s surviving family includes his mother Barbara Stern and stepfather Roger Stern; father Scott and stepmother Michele Baena; brother Brad Baena; stepsister Bianca Gabay and stepbrother Jed Fluxman.

Baena, best known for films The Little Hours, Life After Beth and Joshy, married Plaza in 2021.

He graduated from New York University with a degree in film before moving to Los Angeles to pursue directing.

He worked in production under filmmakers Robert Zemeckis and David O Russell (he co-wrote I Heart Huckabees with the latter), before breaking away to make his own films.

Baena made his directorial debut in 2014 with the release of the zombie comedy film Life After Beth, which featured Plaza.

The pair would go on to collaborate on several projects.

The actress is best known for starring in hit US TV series The White Lotus and Parks and Recreation.

She had been announced as a presenter at Sunday’s Golden Globes ceremony earlier this week before her husband’s death but was obviously not present.

The Brutalist filmmaker Brady Corbet used his acceptance speech after winning best director for a motion picture drama to offer his condolences.

“My heart is with Aubrey Plaza, and Jeff’s family,” he said on stage.

French far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen has died aged 96.

Le Pen, who had been in a care facility for several weeks, died at midday on Tuesday “surrounded by his loved ones”, the family said.

Le Pen – who repeatedly played down the Holocaust and was an unrepentant extremist on race, gender and immigration – founded the French far-right National Front party in 1972.

He reached the presidential election-run off against Jacques Chirac in 2002.

Le Pen’s daughter, Marine, took over as party chief in 2011. She has since rebranded the party as National Rally, turning it into one of France’s main political forces.

She is yet to publicly comment on her father’s passing.

Jordan Bardella, who succeeded Marine Le Pen as party chair in 2022, said Jean-Marie had “always served France” and “defended its identity and sovereignty”.

• Obituary: Jean-Marie Le Pen – founder of French far right and ‘Devil of the Republic’

French President Emmanuel Macron described Le Pen as a “historic figure of the far right”, adding that “history will judge” his role in the country’s political life.

Far-right nationalist Eric Zemmour said on X that “beyond the controversies and the scandals” Le Pen would be remembered for being “among the first to alert France of the existential threats lurking”.

On the other end of the political spectrum, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the radical left France Unbowed (LFI), said that respecting the dignity of the dead and the grief of their family “does not cancel out the right to judge their actions. Those of Jean-Marie Le Pen are unbearable.

“The struggle against the man is over. That against the hatred, racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism that he spread continues.”

For several decades, Le Pen was France’s most controversial political figure. His critics denounced him as a far-right bigot and the courts convicted him several times for his radical remarks.

In a notorious interview in 1987, he pointedly played down the Holocaust – Nazi Germany’s murder of six million Jews. “I do not say that the gas chambers did not exist. I never personally saw them,” he told an interviewer. “I have never particularly studied the issue, but I believe they are a point of detail in the history of World War Two.”

France has strict laws against Holocaust denial and Le Pen was convicted of contesting crimes against humanity and fined €30,000 ($31,180; £24,875).

The former National Front chief was convicted of the same charge in 2012 after saying France’s Nazi occupation had been “not particularly inhumane”.

Still, Le Pen’s strident anti-immigration policies attracted voters. In the 1988 presidential election, he took 14% of the vote. That figure rose to 15% in 1995, and in 2002 Le Pen reached the final round of the presidential election.

However, parties across the political spectrum called on their supporters to vote against him, and his opponent Chirac won with 82%.

In 2015, Le Pen was expelled from the National Rally after repeating his infamous Holocaust denial.

The dismissal also came during a public feud with his daughter, who accused him of reiterating Holocaust denial to try to “rescue himself from obscurity”.

“Maybe by getting rid of me she wanted to make some kind of gesture to the establishment,” Le Pen would later tell the BBC’s Hugh Schofield.

The US has added several Chinese technology companies, including gaming and social media giant Tencent and battery maker CATL, to a list of businesses it says work with China’s military.

The list serves as a warning to American companies and organisations about the risks of doing business with Chinese entities.

While inclusion does not mean an immediate ban, it can add pressure on the US Treasury Department to sanction the firms.

Tencent and CATL have denied involvement with the Chinese military, while Beijing said the decision amounted to “unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies”.

The Department of Defense’s (DOD) list of Chinese military companies, which is formally known as the Section 1260H list, is updated annually and now includes 134 firms.

It is part of Washington’s approach to counteracting what it sees as Beijing’s efforts to increase its military power by using technology from Chinese firms, universities and research programmes.

In response to the latest announcement Tencent, which owns the messaging app WeChat, said its inclusion on the list was “clearly a mistake.”

“We are not a military company or supplier. Unlike sanctions or export controls, this listing has no impact on our business,” a spokesperson for the company told the BBC.

CATL also called the designation a mistake and said it “is not engaged in any military related activities.”

“The US’s practices violate the market competition principles and international economic and trade rules that it has always advocated, and undermine the confidence of foreign companies in investing and operating in the United States,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington.

The Pentagon had come under pressure from US lawmakers to add some of the firms, including CATL, to the list.

This pressure came as US car making giant Ford said it would invest $2bn (£1.6bn) to build a battery plant in Michigan. It has said it plans to license technology from CATL.

Ford did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment.

The announcement comes as relations between the world’s two biggest economies remain strained.

Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump, who has previously taken a tough stance against Beijing, is due to return to the White House this month.

The Pentagon was sued last last year by drone maker DJI and Lidar-maker Hesai Technologies over their inclusion on the list. They both remain on the updated list.

Tencent shares were trading around 7% lower in Hong Kong on Tuesday. CATL was down by about 4%.

Justin Trudeau has said he will step down as prime minister of Canada and leader of the governing Liberal party after nine years in office.

He announced his resignation in a speech outside his Rideau Cottage residence in Ottawa on Monday, speaking in both English and French.

Here is his full statement in English.

Every morning I’ve woken up as prime minister, I’ve been inspired by the resilience, the generosity, and the determination of Canadians. It is the driving force of every single day I have the privilege of serving in this office.

That is why, since 2015, I have fought for this country – for you – to strengthen and grow the middle class.

Why we rallied to support each other through the pandemic, to advance reconciliation, to defend free trade on this continent, to stand strong with Ukraine and our democracy.

And to fight climate change and get our economy ready for the future. We are at a critical moment in the world.

My friends, as you all know, I am a fighter.

Every bone in my body has always told me to fight because I care deeply about Canadians. I care deeply about this country. And I will always be motivated by what is in the best interest of Canadians.

And the fact is, despite best efforts to work through it, parliament has been paralysed for months after what has been the longest session of a minority parliament in Canadian history.

That’s why, this morning I advised the governor general that we need a new session of parliament. She has granted this request and the house will now be prorogued until 24 March.

Over the holidays, I’ve also had a chance to reflect and have had long talks with my family about our future.

Throughout the course of my career, any success I have personally achieved has been because of their support and with their encouragement.

So last night over dinner, I told my kids about the decision that I’m sharing with you today.

I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust, nationwide, competitive process. Last night I asked the president of the Liberal Party to begin that process.

This country deserves a real choice in the next election and it has become clear to me that if I’m having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election.

The Liberal Party of Canada is an important institution in the history of our great country and democracy. A new prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party will carry its values and ideals into that next election.

I am excited to see the process unfold in the months ahead.

We were elected for the third time in 2021 to strengthen the economy post-pandemic and advance Canada’s interests in a complicated world, and that is exactly the job that I, and we, will continue to do for Canadians.

The former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, Mark Carney, says he is “considering” entering the race to replace Justin Trudeau as the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party.

Trudeau said on Monday he would step down after nine years as Canadian prime minister – following growing pressure from his own party and poor opinion polling.

Mr Carney, 59, is one of several names in the frame to replace Trudeau, along with his former deputy Chrystia Freeland and Transport Minister Anita Anand.

Trudeau says he will stay in office until a new leader is chosen. In the meantime, the Canadian parliament has been prorogued – or suspended – until 24 March.

It is likely the Liberals will try to have a new leader in place by the end of the prorogation period – though the timeline and procedure remain unclear. Trudeau has promised a “robust, nationwide, competitive process”.

Mr Carney, who leads an asset management firm and has worked as a Trudeau adviser, told the UK’s Financial Times newspaper: “I’ll be considering this decision closely with my family over the coming days.”

He has long been considered a contender for the top job, though he has never held public office despite his economic background.

During his career as a central banker – at the Bank of Canada from 2007-2013 and then at the Bank of England from 2013-2020 – Mr Carney was influential in the response of two major economies to the global financial crisis.

He also led efforts to support the UK economy through its exit from the European Union and the outbreak of Covid-19.

• Why Trudeau era has come to an end now
• What next for Canada?
• Other names in the frame to replace Trudeau

Whoever succeeds Trudeau in Canada could face an immediate test. The country must have its next federal election by October, but it is considered likely that a vote will be called before that. The opposition Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, currently enjoy a double-digit lead in the opinion polls.

Trudeau himself recently admitted that he had long been trying to recruit Mr Carney to his team, most recently as finance minister. “He would be an outstanding addition at a time when Canadians need good people to step up in politics,” he said last year.

Mr Carney would also bring expertise on environmental matters through his role as the United Nations special envoy on climate action, recently calling the goal of net zero “the greatest commercial opportunity of our time”.

He is a champion of some Liberal policies that have been unpopular within the country’s conservative circles like the federal carbon tax policy, the party’s signature climate policy that critics argue is a financial burden for Canadians.

He has also been critical of Poilievre, saying the Conservative leader’s vision for the future of the country is “without a plan” and “just slogans”.

Other candidates believed to be credible replacements for Trudeau include his former deputy Chrystia Freeland, who resigned from the cabinet after a rift with the prime minister’s office in December, and Transport Minister Anita Anand, a lawyer who was elected in 2019.