A prominent Nigerian atheist, who has just been freed after serving more than four years in prison for blasphemy, is now living in a safe house as his legal team fear his life may be in danger.

Mubarak Bala, 40, was convicted in a court in the northern city of Kano after, in a surprise move, he pleaded guilty to 18 charges relating to a controversial Facebook post shared in 2020.

“The concern about my safety is always there,” he told the BBC in an exclusive interview as he tucked into his first meal as a free man.

Nigeria is a deeply religious society and those who may be seen as having insulted a religion – whether Islam or Christianity – face being shunned and discriminated against.

Blasphemy is an offence under Islamic law – Sharia – which operates alongside secular law in 12 states in the north. It is also an offence under Nigeria’s criminal law.

Bala, who renounced Islam in 2014, said there were times during his incarceration that he felt he “may not get out alive”. He feared he could have been targeted by guards or fellow inmates in the first prison he was in, in Kano, which is a mainly Muslim city.

“Freedom is here, but also there is an underlying threat I now have to face,” he said. “All those years, those threats, maybe they’re out there.”

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He could have been inside for much longer if it was not for an appeals court judge who reduced the initial 24-year sentence last year, describing it as “excessive”.

Walking out of the prison in the capital, Abuja, Bala looked tired, but cheerful dressed in a white T-shirt, khaki shorts and flip-flops. He emerged with his beaming lawyer by his side.

“Everything is new to me. Everything is new,” he said as he took in his new-found liberty.

Bala, an outspoken religious critic, was arrested after a group of lawyers filed a complaint with the police about the social media post.

He then spent two years in prison awaiting trial before being convicted in 2022.

At the time Bala’s guilty plea baffled many, even his legal team, but he stands by his decision, saying that it relieved the pressure on those who stood by him, including his lawyers, friends and family.

“I believe what I did saved not only my life, but people in Kano,” he said.

“Especially those that were attached to my case, because they are also a target.”

His conviction was widely condemned by international rights groups and sparked a debate about freedom of speech in Nigeria.

His detention also sent shockwaves across Nigeria’s small atheist and humanist communities, and his release has come as a relief to many, but there are still concerns.

“It’s thanks and no thanks,” said Leo Igwe, the founder of the Humanist Association of Nigeria.

“Thanks, that he’s out, thanks that he’s a free man. But no thanks, because there is a dent on him as if he committed a crime. For us at the Humanist Association, he committed no crime.”

As for Bala, he is keen to catch up on lost time – including getting to know his young son who was just six weeks old when he was imprisoned. But he said he had no regrets.

“My activism, my posting on social media, I always knew the worst would happen, When I made the decision to come out, I knew I could be killed. I knew the dangers, and I still decided to do it.”

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President-elect Donald Trump is showing no sign of letting up in his desire for the US to acquire Greenland and the Panama Canal, calling both critical to American national security.

Asked if he would rule out using military or economic force in order to take over the autonomous Danish territory or the Canal, he responded: “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two.

“But I can say this, we need them for economic security,” he told reporters during a wide-ranging news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Both Denmark and Panama have rejected any suggestion that they would give up territory.

Trump also vowed to use “economic force” when asked if he would attempt to annex Canada and called their shared border an “artificially drawn line”.

The boundary is the world’s longest between two countries and it was established in treaties dating back to the founding of the US in the late 1700s.

The president-elect said the US spends billions of dollars protecting Canada, and he criticised imports of Canadian cars, lumber and dairy products.

“They should be a state,” he told reporters.

But outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there isn’t “a snowball’s chance in hell” of the two countries merging.

The news conference was initially billed as an economic development announcement to unveil Dubai developer Damac Properties’ $20bn investment to build data centres in the US.

But the president-elect went on to criticise environmental regulations, the US election system, the various legal cases against him, and President Joe Biden.

Among a variety of other things, he suggested renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and restated his opposition to wind power, saying wind turbines are “driving the whales crazy”.

His remarks came as his son, Donald Trump Jr, was visiting Greenland.

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.

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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 close co-operation with the US, a Nato ally.

Greenland lies on the shortest route from North America to Europe and is home to a large American space facility. It also has some of the largest deposits of rare earth minerals, which are crucial in the manufacture of batteries and high-tech devices.

Trump suggested the island is crucial to military efforts to track Chinese and Russian ships, which he said are “all over the place”.

“I’m talking about protecting the free world,” he told reporters.

Since winning re-election Trump has repeatedly returned to the idea of US territorial expansion – including taking back the Panama Canal.

During the news conference, Trump said the canal “is vital to our country” and claimed “it’s being operated by China”.

He previously accused Panama of overcharging US ships to use the waterway, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino has rejected Trump’s claims and said there is “absolutely no Chinese interference” in the canal.

A Hong Kong-based company, CK Hutchison Holdings, manages two ports at the canal’s entrances.

The canal was built in the early 1900s and the US maintained control over the canal zone until 1977, when treaties negotiated under President Jimmy Carter gradually ceded the land back to Panama.

“Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake,” Trump said. “Look, [Carter] was a good man… But that was a big mistake.”

It’s unclear how serious the president-elect is about adding to the territory of the US, particularly when it comes to Canada, a country of 41 million people and the second-largest nation by area in the world.

During the news conference, Trump also repeated a number of falsehoods and odd conspiracy theories, including suggesting that Hezbollah, the Islamist militant group, was involved in the US Capitol riot of 2021.

Rescuers searched into the night for survivors after a major earthquake killed at least 126 people and damaged more than 3,000 buildings in a remote part of the Chinese region of Tibet, near Everest.

Another 188 people were 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 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 km (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 brought down 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 before night fell, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

Sangji Dangzhi – whose supermarket was damaged in the earthquake – said the destruction of 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.

State media said that, as of 19:00 local time, some 3,609 buildings had collapsed – potentially leaving thousands of people without shelter.

A hotel resident in Shigatse told Chinese media outlet Fengmian News he had been jolted awake by a wave of shaking. He said he had grabbed his socks and rushed out on to 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 – which cannot be freely travelled to by journalists – 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.

Jiang Haikun, a researcher at the China Earthquake Networks Center, told CCTV that while another earthquake of around magnitude 5 might 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 the area, 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 sent drones to the affected area.

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.”

Immigration has long been a polarising issue in the West but Canada mostly avoided it – until now. With protests and campaign groups springing up in certain quarters, some argue that this – together with housing shortages and rising rents – contributed to Justin Trudeau’s resignation. But could Donald Trump’s arrival inflame it further?

At first glance, the single bedroom for rent in Brampton, Ontario looks like a bargain. True, there’s barely any floor space, but the asking price is only C$550 (£300) a month in a Toronto suburb where the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom flat is C$2,261. Inspect it more closely, however, and this is actually a small bathroom converted into sleeping quarters. A mattress is jammed up next to the sink, the toilet is nearby.

The ad, originally posted on Facebook Marketplace, has generated hundreds of comments online. “Disgusting,” wrote one Reddit user. “Hey 20-somethings, you’re looking at your future,” says another.

But there are other listings like it – one room for rent, also in Brampton, shows a bed squashed near a staircase in what appears to be a laundry area. Another rental in Scarborough, a district in Ontario, offers a double bed in the corner of a kitchen.

While Canada might have a lot of space, there aren’t enough homes and in the past three years, rents across the country have increased by almost 20%, according to property consultancy Urbanation.

In all, some 2.4 million Canadian families are crammed into homes that are too small, in urgent need of major repairs or are seriously unaffordable, a government watchdog report released in December has suggested.

This accommodation shortage has come to a head at the same time that inflation is hitting Canadians hard – and these issues have, in turn, moved another issue high up the agenda in the country: immigration.

For the first time a majority of Canadians, who have long been welcoming to newcomers, are questioning how their cities can manage.

Politics in other Western countries has long been wrapped up in polarised debates surrounding immigration but until recently Canada had mostly avoided that issue, perhaps because of its geography. Now, however, there appears to be a profound shift in attitude.

In 2022, 27% of Canadians said there were too many immigrants coming into the country, according to a survey by data and research firm Environics. By 2024, that number had increased to 58%.

Campaign groups have sprung up too and there have been marches protesting against immigration in Ottawa, Vancouver and Calgary, and elsewhere around the country.

“I would say it was very much taboo, like no one would really talk about it,” explains Peter Kratzar, a software engineer and the founder of Cost of Living Canada, a protest group that was formed in 2024. “[But] things have really unfrozen.”

Stories like that of the bathroom for rent in Brampton have fuelled this, he suggests: “People might say, like, this is all anecdotal evidence. But the evidence keeps popping up. You see it over and over again.”

“People became concerned about how the immigration system was being managed,” adds Keith Neuman, executive director at Environics. “And we believe it’s the first time the public really thought about the management of the system.”

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Once the golden boy of Canadian politics, prime minister Justin Trudeau, resigned on 6 January during a crucial election year, amid this widespread discontent over immigration levels.

His approval levels before his resignation were just 22% – a far cry from the first year of his premiership, when 65% of voters said they approved of him.

Though immigration is not the main reason for his low approval levels nor his resignation – he cited “having to fight internal battles” – he was accused of acting too late when dealing with rising anxiety over inflation and housing that many blamed, in part, on immigration.

“While immigration may not have been the immediate cause of the resignation, it may have been the icing on the cake,” says Professor Jonathan Rose, head of the department of political studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

Under Trudeau’s administration, the Canadian government deliberately chose to radically boost the numbers of people coming to the country after the pandemic, believing that boosting quotas for foreign students and temporary workers, in addition to skilled immigrants, would jumpstart the economy.

The population, which was 35 million 10 years ago, now tops 40 million.

Immigration was responsible for the vast majority of that increase – figures from Canada’s national statistics agency show that in 2024, more than 90% of population growth came from immigration.

As well as overall migration levels, the number of refugees has risen too. In 2013, there were 10,365 refugee applicants in Canada – by 2023, that number had increased to 143,770.

Voter dissatisfaction with immigration was “more a symptom than a cause” of Trudeau’s downfall, argues Prof Rose. “It reflects his perceived inability to read the room in terms of public opinion.”

It’s unclear who might replace Trudeau from within his own Liberal Party but ahead of the forthcoming election, polls currently favour the Conservative Party, whose leader Pierre Poilievre advocates keeping the number of new arrivals below the number of new homes being built.

Since Donald Trump won the US presidential election in November, Poilievre “has been speaking much more about immigration”, claims Prof Rose – “so much that it has become primed in the minds of voters”.

Certainly Trump’s arrival for a second term is set to pour oil on an already inflamed issue in Canada, regardless of who the new prime minister is.

He won the US election in part on a pledge to carry out mass deportations of undocumented migrants – and since his victory, he has said that he will enlist the military and declare a national emergency to follow through on his promise.

He also announced plans to employ 25% tariffs on Canadian goods unless border security is tightened.

Canada and the US share the world’s longest undefended border. Stretching almost 9,000km (5,592 miles), much of it crosses heavily forested wilderness and is demarcated by “The Slash,” a six-metre wide land clearing.

Unlike America’s southern border, there are no walls. This has long been a point of pride between Ottawa and Washington – a sign of their close ties.

After Trump first entered office in 2017, the number of asylum claims skyrocketed, with thousands walking across the border to Canada. The number of claims went from just under 24,000 in 2016 to 55,000 a year by 2018, according to the Canadian government. Almost all crossed from New York state into the Canadian province of Quebec.

In 2023, Canada and the US agreed to a tightened border deal that stopped most migrants from crossing the land border from one country to another. Under the agreement, migrants that come into contact with the authorities within 14 days of crossing any part of the border into either the US or Canada must return to whichever country they entered first — in order to declare asylum there.

The deal, reworked by Trudeau and Joe Biden, is based on the idea that both the US and Canada are safe countries for asylum seekers.

This time around, Canada’s national police force – the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) – says it began preparing a contingency plan for increased migrant crossings at the border well ahead of Trump being sworn in.

This includes a raft of new technology, from drones and night vision goggles, to surveillance cameras hidden in the forest.

“Worst-case scenario would be people crossing in large numbers everywhere on the territory,” RCMP spokesperson Charles Poirier warned in November. “Let’s say we had 100 people per day entering across the border, then it’s going to be hard because our officers will basically have to cover huge distances in order to arrest everyone.”

Now, the national government has committed a further C$1.3bn (£555m) to its border security plan.

Not everyone blames the housing crisis on the recent rise in immigration. It was “30 years in the making” because politicians have failed to build affordable units, argues Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow.

Certainly the country has a long history of welcoming newcomers. “Close to 50% of the population of Canada is first or second generation,” explains Mr Neuman. “That means either they came from another country, or one or both of their parents came from another country. In Toronto, Vancouver, that’s over 80%.”

This makes Canada “a very different place than a place that has a homogeneous population,” he argues.

He has been involved in a survey examining attitudes towards newcomers for 40 years. “If you ask Canadians: what’s the most important or distinctive thing about Canada, or what makes the country unique? The number one response is ‘multiculturalism’ or ‘diversity’,” he says.

Nonetheless, he says the shift in public opinion – and the rise in concerns about immigration – has been “dramatic”.

“Now there is not only broader public concern, but much more open discussion,” he says. “There are more questions being asked about how is the system working? How come it isn’t working?”

At one of the protests in Toronto, a crowd turned out with hand-painted signs, some proclaiming: “We want our future back!” and “End Mass Immigration”.

“We do need to put a moratorium on immigration,” argues Mr Kratzar, whose group has taken part in some of them. “We need to delay that so wages can catch up on the cost of rents.”

Accusations against newcomers are spreading on social media too. Last summer, Natasha White, who describes herself as a resident of Wasaga Beach in Ontario, claimed on TikTok that some newcomers had been digging holes on the beach and defecating in them.

The post generated hundreds of thousands of views and a torrent of anti-foreigner hatred, with many arguing that newcomers should “go home”.

People I interviewed who work closely with asylum seekers in Canada say that the heightened concerns around the need for more border security is making asylum seekers feel unsettled and afraid.

Abdulla Daoud, executive director at the Refugee Center in Montreal, believes that the vulnerable asylum seekers he works with feel singled out by the focus on migrant numbers since the US election. “They’re definitely more anxious,” he says. “I think they’re coming in and they’re feeling, ‘Okay, am I going to be welcomed here? Am I in the right place or not?'”

Those hoping to stay in Canada as refugees can’t access official immigration settlement services until it has been decided they truly need asylum. This process once took two weeks but it can now take as long as three years.

Tent cities to house newly-arrived refugees and food banks with empty shelves have sprung up in Toronto. The city’s homeless shelters are often reported to be full. Last winter, two refugee applicants froze to death after sleeping on Toronto’s streets.

Toronto mayor Olivia Chow, an immigrant herself having moved to Canada from Hong Kong at age 13, says: “People are seeing that, even with working two jobs or three jobs, they can’t have enough money to pay the rent and feed the kids.

“I understand the hardship of having a life that is not affordable, and the fear of being evicted, absolutely, I get it. But to blame that on the immigration system is unfair.”

With frustrations growing, Trudeau announced a major change in October: a 20% reduction in immigration targets over three years. “As we emerged from the pandemic, between addressing labour needs and maintaining population growth, we didn’t get the balance quite right,” he conceded.

He added that he wanted to give all levels of government time to catch up – to accommodate more people. But, given that he has since resigned, is it enough? And does the Trump presidency and the increasing anti-immigrant sentiment on that side of the border risk spilling further into Canada?

Mr Daoud has his own view. “Unfortunately, I think the Trump presidency had its impact on Canadian politics,” he says. “I think a lot of politicians are using this as a way to fear-monger.”

Others are less convinced that it will have much of an impact. “Canadians are better than that,” says Olivia Chow. “We remember that successive waves of refugees helped create Toronto and Canada.”

Politicians wading into the debate around population growth ahead of the next election will be conscious of the fact that half of Canadians are first and second-generation immigrants themselves. “If the Conservatives win the next election, we can expect a reduction in immigration,” says Prof Jonathan Rose. But he adds that Poilievre will have to walk “a bit of fine line”.

Prof Rose says: “Since immigrant-heavy ridings [constituencies] in Toronto and Vancouver will be important to any electoral victory, he can’t be seen as anti-immigration, merely recalibrating it to suit economic and housing policy.”

And there are a large number of Canadians, including business leaders and academics, who believe that the country must continue to pursue an assertive growth policy to combat Canada’s falling birth rate.

“I really have high hopes for Canadians,” adds Lisa Lalande of the Century Initiative, which advocates for policies that would see Canada’s population increase to 100 million by 2100. “I actually think we will rise above where we are now.

“I think we’re just really concerned about affordability [and] cost of living – not about immigrants themselves. We recognise they’re too important to our culture.”

A former senior UK Special Forces officer has told a public inquiry into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan that the SAS had a “golden pass allowing them to get away with murder”.

The accusation was published by the Afghanistan Inquiry on Wednesday as part of a release of material summarising seven closed hearings with members of UK Special Forces.

The officer, a former operations chief of staff for the Special Boat Service (SBS) – the UK’s naval special forces – was one of several senior officers who registered concerns back in 2011 that the SAS appeared to be carrying out executions and covering them up.

In one email from the time, the officer wrote that the SAS and murder were “regular bedfellows” and described the regiment’s official descriptions of operational killings as “quite incredible”.

Asked by the inquiry during the closed hearings whether he stood by his assertion that the SAS’s actions amounted to murder, the officer replied: “Indeed.”

Pressed by the inquiry counsel about his decision not to report his concerns further up the chain of command in 2011, he said he regretted his lack of action at the time. He agreed that there had been a “massive failure of leadership” by UK Special Forces.

The former SBS operations chief of staff was one of several senior officers from the Royal Navy’s special forces regiment who gave evidence to the inquiry behind closed doors in 2024.

The inquiry, which is examining night raids by UKSF between 2010 and 2013, follows years of reporting by BBC Panorama into allegations of murder and cover up by the SAS.

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Only the inquiry team and representatives from the Ministry of Defence have been allowed to attend the closed hearings. The public, members of the media, and lawyers for the bereaved families are not allowed to be present.

The material released on Wednesday summarises the testimony from these hearings. Taken together, the documents – totalling hundreds of pages – paint a picture of the SAS’s arrival in Afghanistan in 2009 and the way in which it took over hunting the Taliban from the SBS.

Senior SBS officers told the inquiry of deep concerns that the SAS, fresh from aggressive, high-tempo operations in Iraq, was being driven by kill counts – the number of dead they could achieve in each operation.

Another senior SBS officer who gave evidence was asked whether he stood by his concerns in 2011 that the SAS was carrying out extra-judicial killings.

“I thought and think that on at least some operations [the SAS] was carrying out murders,” he said.

A junior SBS officer who also gave evidence to the inquiry behind closed doors described a conversation in which a member of the SAS who had recently returned from Afghanistan told him about a pillow being put over the head of someone before they were killed with a pistol.

“I suppose what shocked me most wasn’t the execution of potential members of the Taliban, which was of course wrong and illegal, but it was more the age and the methods and, you know, the details of things like pillows,” the junior officer said.

He clarified that some of those killed by the SAS had been children, according to the conversation he relayed. Asked by the inquiry counsel if he meant some of those killed would be as young as 16, he replied: “Or younger 100%”.

The junior officer told the inquiry that he feared for his safety should his name be linked to testimony that the SAS had been allegedly murdering civilians.

These SBS officers were part of a small group that was privately raising doubts back in 2011 about the veracity of SAS operational reports coming back from Afghanistan.

In one email, one of the senior officers, who held a post at the SBS headquarters in Poole at the time, wrote to a senior colleague: “If we don’t believe this, then no one else will and when the next WikiLeaks occurs then we will be dragged down with them.”

The two senior officers were in a position to interpret the language in the regiment’s reports, having served with SBS operational units in Afghanistan prior to the arrival of the SAS, when the naval unit was forced to take what it saw as a back seat, pursuing anti-narcotics operations rather than hunting the Taliban.

As well as believing that the SAS may have committed murders, they described in their emails what they viewed as a cover-up in Afghanistan. The second officer told the inquiry chair: “Basically, there appears to be a culture there of ‘shut up, don’t question’.”

At the time, support staff in Afghanistan were sceptical about the SAS’s accounts of their operations, judging them not credible.

But rather than taking the concerns seriously, a reprimand had been issued “to ensure that the staff officers support the guys on the ground”, another senior SBS officer wrote.

He told the inquiry that in the eyes of the Special Forces’ commanding officer in Afghanistan, the SAS could do no wrong, and described the lack of accountability for the regiment as “astonishing”.

The documents released on Wednesday also reveal new details about an explosive meeting in Afghanistan in February 2011, during which the Afghan special forces that partnered the SAS angrily withdrew their support.

The meeting followed a growing rift between the SAS and the Afghan special forces over what the Afghans saw as unlawful killings by members of the SAS.

One Afghan officer present at the meeting was so incensed that he reportedly reached for his pistol.

Describing the meeting in a newly released email, the SBS officer wrote: “I’ve never had such a hostile meeting before – genuine shouting, arm waving and with me staring down a 9mm barrel at one stage – all pretty unpleasant.”

After intervention from senior members of UKSF, the Afghan units agreed to continue to working alongside the SAS. But it would not be the last time they withdrew their support in protest.

“This is all very damaging,” the SBS officer concluded his email.

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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.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has hit back at Donald Trump’s threat to use “economic force” to absorb Canada into the US saying there isn’t “a snowball’s chance in hell” to join the two.

President-elect Trump has in recent weeks repeatedly needled Canada about it becoming the 51st US state.

“You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security,” Trump said at a press conference at his Florida Mar-a Lago home on Tuesday.

“Canada and the United States, that would really be something.”

Trump reiterated his threat to bring in a “substantial” tariff on Canadian goods unless the country took steps to increase security on the shared US border.

The ongoing tariff threat comes at a politically challenging time for Canada.

On Monday, an embattled Trudeau announced he was resigning, though he will stay on as prime minister until the governing Liberals elect a new leader, expected sometime by late March.

Canada’s parliament has been prorogued – or suspended – until 24 March to allow time for the leadership race.

Economists warn that if Trump follows through on imposing the tariffs after he is inaugurated on 20 January, it would significantly hurt Canada’s economy.

Almost C$3.6bn ($2.5bn) worth of goods and services crossed the border daily in 2023, according to Canadian government figures.

The Trudeau government has said it is considering imposing counter-tariffs if Trump follows through on the threat.

The prime minister also said on X on Tuesday that: “Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner.”

During his lengthy Mar-a-Lago press conference, Trump reiterated his concerns he has expressed about drugs crossing the borders of Mexico and Canada into the US.

Like Canada, Mexico faces a 25% tariff threat.

The amount of fentanyl seized at the US-Canada border is significantly lower than at the southern border, according to US data.

Canada has promised to implement a set of sweeping new security measures along the border, including strengthened surveillance and adding a joint “strike force” to target transnational organised crime.

Trump said on Tuesday he was not considering using military force to make Canada part of the United States, but raised concerns about its neighbour’s military spending.

“They have a very small military. They rely on our military. It’s all fine, but, you know, they got to pay for that. It’s very unfair,” he said.

Canada has been under pressure to increase its military spending as it continues to fall short of the target set out for Nato members.

Its defence budget currently stands at C$27bn ($19.8bn, £15.5bn), though the Trudeau government has promised that it will boost spending to almost C$50bn by 2030.

British Columbia Premier David Eby told a news conference on Tuesday that a number of Canadian provincial premiers will soon be travelling to Washington DC to lobby against the possible tariffs.

On Monday, Doug Ford, the leader of Canada’s most populous province Ontario, said Trudeau must spend his remaining weeks in office working with the provinces to address Trump’s threat.

“The premiers are leading the country right now,” he told BBC News in an interview.

• What happens next for Canada?
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Ontario has a deep reliance on trade with the US. The province is at the heart of the highly integrated auto industry in Canada, and trade between Ontario and the US totalled more than C$493bn ($350bn) in 2023.

“My message is let’s work together, let’s build a stronger trade relationship – not weaken it,” Ford said.

The premier warned “we will retaliate hard” if the Trump administration follows through, and highlighted the close economic ties between the two nations, including on energy.

The US relies “on Ontario for their electricity. We keep the lights on to a million and a half homes and businesses in the US”, he said.

At a press conference early this week, Ford also pushed back on Trump’s 51st state comments.

“I’ll make him a counter-offer. How about if we buy Alaska and we throw in Minneapolis and Minnesota at the same time?” Ford said.

Luxury carmaker Rolls-Royce will expand its Goodwood factory and global headquarters to meet the growing demand for bespoke models.

It will invest more than £300 million so it can build more highly-customised versions of its cars for its super-rich clientele.

The 120-year old British brand came under full control of German carmaker BMW in 2003 and officially opened the site in West Sussex the same year. Rolls Royce says this expansion secures its future in the UK.

Rolls-Royce sold 5,712 cars in 2024, the third highest total in its history.

While that number may seem tiny compared with the millions of cars delivered each year by mainstream manufacturers, Rolls-Royce operates in a highly rarefied market.

The brand said it “does not disclose prices” but it is understood its cheapest model, the Ghost saloon, sells from about £250,000 upwards. Its Cullinan sports utility vehicle and electric Spectre models are thought to start at around £340,000.

In comparison, the average UK house price was £297,000 last year, according to Halifax.

The price of bespoke models can vary widely. When it comes to the most elaborate creations, the final product can cost several times the base price of the car.

There are relatively few buyers who can afford to pay so much for a car. Among those who can are celebrities, who often do not mind flaunting their wealth.

Among them are US stars Kim Kardashian and Nicki Minaj, as well as British rapper Stormzy who was banned from driving after being caught using a mobile phone behind the wheel of his Wraith in London.

For some customers, simply owning a Rolls-Royce isn’t exclusive enough. In recent years, the company has increasingly focused on building highly-customised versions of its cars, which can then be sold at even higher prices.

Rolls-Royce describes this strategy as “creating value for clients through individualised products and experiences and providing opportunities for meaningful personal expression”.

In practice, this has included cars with holographic paint, containing one-off artworks, or featuring intricate hand-stitched embroidery. One model, designed as a homage to the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger, includes features made out of solid 18-carat gold.

Rolls-Royce is not alone in this. Other high-end manufacturers such as Bentley, McLaren and Ferrari also offer detailed customisation.

But making individually tailored cars, while profitable, is a labour-intensive process that requires time and space. At the same time, like other manufacturers the company is preparing for a future in which conventional cars will be phased out and replaced by electric models.

Rolls-Royce said the extension of its factory would “create additional space for the increasingly complex and high value bespoke and coachbuild projects sought by clients who define luxury as something deeply personal to them”.

It added that the plan would “also ready the manufacturing facility for the marque’s transition to an all-battery electric vehicle future”.

The carmaker has already been granted planning permission for the expansion of the Goodwood plant, which was built in 2003 and initially housed 300 workers. There are currently more than 2,500 people working on the site.

“This represents our most substantial financial commitment to Goodwood since its opening,” said the Rolls Royce chief executive, Chris Brownridge.

“It is a significant vote of confidence in the Rolls-Royce marque, securing our future in the UK,” he added.

As a luxury carmaker focused on export markets, Rolls-Royce is insulated from many of the challenges currently facing the wider European motor industry. However, it has been affected by a fall in demand in China, one of its most important markets.

Earlier this year, Mr Brownridge said rising demand for personalised vehicles was helping to offset that decline.

The announcement comes weeks after another famous British brand generated controversy while setting out its own plans for the future.

Jaguar – a part of Jaguar Land Rover – is to be relaunched as an all-electric marque and moved sharply upmarket as part of a major restructuring at the company.

In December, it unveiled a dramatically styled concept car, which together with a new logo and a divisive online advert sparked a social media storm – and generated plenty of column inches.

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.

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!”

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.

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.

Although Babatunde Fashola, affectionately known as Baba, is 22 years old, he is less than 70cm (2ft 4in) tall.

He has cerebral palsy and requires lifelong care. He can neither speak nor walk and is fed via a tube attached to his stomach.

As a baby, he was abandoned by his parents but 10 years ago, he found a home at the Cerebral Palsy Centre in the Nigerian city of Lagos.

“Baba weighs about 12kg [26lb]. He is doing well,” the facility’s founder, Nonye Nweke, tells me when I visit.

Ms Nweke and her staff work around the clock to support him and other youngsters living with permanent brain damage.

Although there is a lack of official data, cerebral palsy is believed to be one of the most common neurological disorders in Nigeria. In 2017, a medical professor from the University of Lagos said 700,000 people had the condition.

For many of those living with cerebral palsy in the country, their condition was caused by a common phenomenon among newborns – neonatal jaundice.

This is caused by a build-up of bilirubin, a yellow substance, in the blood, meaning the babies’ skins have a yellow tinge.

Professor Chinyere Ezeaka, a paediatrician at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, tells the BBC that more than 60% of all babies suffer from jaundice.

Most babies recover within days. More severe cases need further medical intervention – and even then the condition is easily treatable.

Children are basically exposed to ultra-violet light to dissolve the excess bilirubin in their red blood cells. The treatment lasts a few days depending on the severity.

However, in Nigeria this treatment is often not immediately available, which is why the country is among the five with the most neurological disorders caused by untreated jaundice in the world, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Any treatment for neonatal jaundice “must occur within the first 10 days of life, else [the condition] could cause permanent brain damage and severe cerebral palsy”, says Prof Ezeaka.

To make matters worse, the West African country lacks facilities to care for those with neurological disorders. There are just three cerebral palsy centres, all privately run, in Nigeria, which has a population of more than 200 million.

Ms Nweke – a single mother – set up the Cerebral Palsy Centre after struggling to find support for her own daughter, Zimuzo.

“When I took her to a day-care [centre], they asked me to take her back because other mothers would withdraw their children. As a mum, I must say it was quite devastating,” Ms Nweke tells the BBC.

Zimuzo is now 17, and Ms Nweke’s Cerebral Palsy Centre provides full-time support for others with similar experiences.

On the day I visit, colourful playtime mats and toys are neatly arranged on the floor. Mickey Mouse and his friends converse on a wide-screen television in the lounge.

Twelve youngsters, some as young as five, gaze at the TV, their bright environment ignored for a moment. They are all immobile and non-speaking.

At lunchtime, caregivers help the youngsters eat. Some take in liquified food through tubes attached to their stomachs.

Carefully and slowly, the carers support their heads with pillows and push the contents of their syringes into the tubes.

The youngsters are fed every two hours and require regular muscular massages to prevent stiffness.

But they are the lucky 12 receiving free care from the Cerebral Palsy Centre, which is funded exclusively by donors.

The facility has a long waiting list – Ms Nweke has received more than 100 applications.

But taking on more youngsters would require extra financial support. The cost of caring for someone at the centre is at least $1,000 (£790) a month – a huge amount in a country where the national minimum wage is about $540 a year.

“As a mum, I must say it’s quite overwhelming. You have moments of depression, it gives you heartaches and it is quite expensive – in fact it’s the most expensive congenital disorder to manage,” Ms Nweke says.

“And then of course, it keeps you away from people because you don’t discuss the same things. They are talking of their babies, walking, enjoying those baby moments. You are not doing that. You are sad,” she adds.

Ms Nweke explains that she adopted Zimuzo from an orphanage.

A few months after taking her new daughter home, Ms Nweke realised Zimuzo was not developing in the same way as the children around her were. She was assessed at a hospital and diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

Ms Nweke was told she could take Zimuzo, who was then just a few months old, back to the orphanage and adopt another baby instead, but she refused.

“I decided to keep her and I began researching what the disorder was about, the treatment and type of care my child would need – she’s my life.

“I was also told by the doctors she won’t live beyond two years. Well here we are – 17 years later,” says a smiling Ms Nweke.

A lack of awareness and adequate medical support hinders the diagnosis and treatment of neonatal jaundice in Nigeria.

Ms Nweke also says the common local belief that children with congenital disorders are spiritually damaged or bewitched leads to stigmatisation.

Some children with neurological disorders – mostly in Nigeria’s rural areas – are labelled witches. In some cases, they are abandoned in prayer houses or cast out of their families.

Ms Nweke is not alone in her mission to dispel myths and improve care.

The Oscar Project – a charity aimed at improving the diagnosis and treatment of neonatal jaundice – recently began operating in Lagos.

The project is named after Vietnamese-born British disability advocate, Oscar Anderson, whose untreated jaundice caused his cerebral palsy.

“We’re equipping health facilities at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels with the equipment to treat jaundice, primarily light boxes, but also detection and screening equipment,” Toyin Saraki, who oversaw the launch, tells the BBC.

Project Oscar, backed by consumer health firm Reckitt, is training 300 health workers in Lagos. The hope over the first year is to reach 10,000 mothers, screen 9,000 children and introduce new protocols to try and prevent babies with jaundice from developing cerebral palsy.

In a country where the public health system is overstretched, the government has little to say about the disorder, although it lauded the Oscar project’s goals.

Treatment for neonatal jaundice is significantly cheaper than the cost of lifelong care, doctors say.

First launched in Vietnam in 2019, Project Oscar has helped about 150,000 children in the Asian country.

Mr Anderson, 22, says he wants to prevent other children experiencing what he has been through.

“People with disabilities are not to be underestimated,” he tells the BBC.

He is working to ensure screening for every newborn infant for neonatal jaundice, and, with the support and courage of mums, midwives and medical professionals, ensure there is better understanding and quicker treatment.

However, achieving this is a hugely ambitious goal in Africa’s most-populous country, where thousands of babies are born each year with neonatal jaundice.

Regardless, Mr Anderson is determined to defy the odds.

“The work doesn’t stop until every baby is protected against neonatal jaundice,” he says.

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Bumblebees have been found to be starting nests in the depths of winter due to climate change, say conservationists.

The charity Buglife said active worker bumblebees, which do most of the work in a nest, were spotted in Aberdeen during mild weather over the Christmas break.

It said a previous survey had recorded bumblebees and honeybees between Christmas and New Year at locations across the UK, including the Highlands.

Buglife said the nests were at a “high risk” of failing because of the shortage of flowers for the bees to collect nectar and pollen from, and the risk of a return to colder weather.

Scientists have previously said climate change had caused a widespread loss of bumblebees across the world.

The insects, an important pollinator, normally hibernate through winter into spring.

The Christmas period was unseasonably mild, but since then there have been days of cold and snowy weather.

Buglife said at least two of the UK’s 25 species of bumblebee were believed to have started nest-building early.

The charity’s Paul Hetherington said: “In 2019 Buglife ran a bee survey over the Christmas to New Year break and were amazed at the results with honeybees and bumblebees found from Jersey through to Thurso.

“This year one of my colleagues based in Aberdeen spotted active worker bumblebees over the Christmas break.

“The fact that there are active workers means not only have the queens awakened from hibernation but they have gone to the extent of starting new nests.”

Mr Hetherington said a lack of flowers and wintry weather left the nests at risk of collapse and could kill the bees.

He added: “If this happens there will be no new queens produced meaning far fewer to emerge in spring further feeding the known decline in bumblebees.”

The milder conditions also led to people encountering a far less welcome invertebrate – ticks.

The tiny parasitic spider-like creatures are usually active from early spring to late autumn.

Lyme disease, a bacterial infection which causes a range of health problems, can be spread to humans from some tick bites.

Inverness was among places the pests were found to be active, with one spotted in woodland in the city’s Ness Castle area on 28 December.

Over winter, adult ticks do not hibernate and instead shelter from low temperatures in long vegetation.

Mr Hetherington said: “This means that they are still potentially active and the period around 28 December was relatively warm for the time of year, a likely consequence of climate change is increased periods of tick activity in the same way that bumblebees have been spotted on the wing across Scotland this December.”

The charity Lyme Disease Action said it was concerning situation.

A spokeswoman said: “A widening of the period when ticks are active means there is a widening of the period when tick-borne diseases can be contracted.”

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”.

The move comes as Zuckerberg and other tech executives seek to improve relations with US President-elect Donald Trump before he takes office later this month.

Trump and his Republican allies have criticised Meta for its fact-checking policy, calling it censorship of right-wing voices.

Speaking after the changes were announced, Trump told a news conference he was impressed by Zuckerberg’s decision and that Meta had “come a long way”.

Asked whether Zuckerberg was “directly responding” to threats Trump had made to him in the past, the incoming US president responded: “Probably”.

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

Campaigners against hate speech online reacted with dismay to the change – and suggested it was really motivated by getting on the right side of 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 can have labels attached to them offering viewers more information, 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 get rid of its third-party fact checkers in the UK or the EU.

The new community notes system has been copied from X, which introduced it after being bought and renamed by Elon Musk.

It involves people of different viewpoints agreeing on notes which add context or clarifications to controversial posts.

“This is cool,” he said of Meta’s adoption of a similar mechanism.

After concerns were raised around self-harm and depressive content, Meta clarified that there would be “no change to how we treat content that encourages suicide, self-injury, and eating disorders”.

Fact-checking organisation Full Fact – which participates in Facebook’s program for verifying posts in Europe – said it “refutes allegations of bias” made against its profession.

The body’s chief executive, Chris Morris, described the change as a “disappointing and a backwards step that risks a chilling effect around the world.”

Alongside content moderators, fact checkers sometimes describe themselves as the internet’s emergency services.

But Meta bosses have concluded they have been intervening too much.

“Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in “Facebook jail,” and we are often too slow to respond when they do,” wrote Joel Kaplan on Tuesday.

But Meta does appear to acknowledge there is some risk involved – Zuckerberg said in his video the changes would mean “a trade off”.

“It means we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down,” he said.

The approach is also at odds with recent regulation in both the UK and Europe, where big tech firms are being forced to take more responsibility for the content they carry or face steep penalties.

So it’s perhaps not surprising that Meta’s move away from this line of supervision is US-only, for now at least.

Meta’s blog post said it would also “undo the mission creep” of rules and policies.

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

It comes as technology firms and their executives prepare for Trump’s inauguration on 20 January.

Several CEOs have publicly congratulated Trump on his return to office, while others have travelled to Trump’s Florida estate Mar-Lago to meet with the incoming president, including Zuckerberg 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 Zuckerberg in Tuesday’s video.

Meta notified Trump’s team of the policy change before the announcement, the New York Times reported.

Kaplan replacing Sir Nick – 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.

The company also announced on Monday that Dana White, a close Trump ally and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, would join its board of directors.

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.

The bodies of two people were found in a landing gear compartment of a JetBlue plane at the Fort Lauderdale airport in Florida, according to the company.

The two deceased people were found during a routine inspection on Monday night after the plane landed, JetBlue said.

“The circumstances surrounding how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation,” the company said in a statement.

“This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred.”

The Airbus flight came in from New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport, departing at about 20:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Monday and landing at about 23:00.

Local police are investigating how the two people accessed the plane, while a medical examiner’s office is performing autopsies to determine their causes of death, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

The incident comes just two weeks after a body was found in the landing gear compartment of a United Airlines plane, which landed in Hawaii on Christmas Eve. Officials have not shared how the person got into the landing gear compartment or what the cause of death was.

The landing gear compartment of a plane is a dangerous place, exposing stowaways to extremely cold temperatures and a lack of oxygen. Those inside the compartment can also be crushed by landing gear when it is withdrawn back into the airplane.

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.

A small Italian village has banned its residents from becoming seriously ill.

People living in Belcastro “are … ordered to avoid contracting any illness that may require emergency medical assistance,” a decree from local Mayor Antonio Torchia states.

Belcastro sits in the southern region of Calabria – one of Italy’s poorest.

Torchia said the move was “obviously a humorous provocation”, but that it was having more of an effect than the urgent notices he had sent to regional authorities to highlight the shortcomings of the local healthcare system.

Around half of Belcastro’s 1,200 residents are over the age of 65 and the nearest Accident & Emergency (A&E) department is over 45km (28 miles) away, the mayor said.

He added that the A&E was only reachable by a road with a 30kmh (18mph) speed limit.

The village’s on-call doctor surgery is also only open sporadically and offers no cover during weekends, holidays or after hours.

Torchia told Italian TV that it was hard to “feel safe when you know that if you need assistance, your only hope is to make it to [A&E] on time” – and that the roads were almost “more of a risk than any illness”.

As part of the decree, residents have also been ordered “not to engage in behaviours that may be harmful and to avoid domestic accidents”, and “not to leave the house too often, travel or practise sports, and to [instead] rest for the majority of the time”.

It is unclear how these new rules will be enforced, if at all.

The sparsely populated region of Calabria – the tip of Italy’s boot – is one of the country’s poorest.

Political mismanagement and mafia interference have decimated its healthcare system, which was put under special administration from the central government almost 15 years ago.

Rome-appointed commissioners have had difficulties tackling the vast levels of debt faced by hospitals, meaning Calabrians remain crippled by a serious lack of medical personnel and beds, as well as interminable waiting lists.

• Italy’s Calabria has two pandemics: Covid and the mafia

Eighteen of the region’s hospitals have closed since 2009.

As a result, almost half of Calabria’s near two million residents seek medical assistance outside the region.

In 2022, it was announced that Cuba would send 497 doctors to the Italian region over three years to work in various medical facilities. Regional governor Roberto Occhiuto said last year that these doctors had “saved” Calabria’s hospitals.

Belcastro residents told local media that Mayor Torchia had “done the right thing in shining a light on the issue”, and that the decision would “shake consciences”.

“He has used a provocative decree to attract attention on a serious problem,” one man said.

Apple is facing fresh calls to withdraw its controversial artificial intelligence (AI) feature that has generated inaccurate news alerts on its latest iPhones.

The product is meant to summarise breaking news notifications but has in some instances invented entirely false claims.

The BBC first complained to the tech giant about its journalism being misrepresented in December but Apple did not respond until Monday this week, when it said it was working to clarify that summaries were AI-generated.

Alan Rusbridger, the former editor of the Guardian, told the BBC Apple needed to go further and pull a product he said was “clearly not ready.”

Mr Rusbridger, who also sits on Meta’s Oversight Board that reviews appeals of the company’s content moderation decisions, added the technology was “out of control” and posed a considerable misinformation risk.

“Trust in news is low enough already without giant American corporations coming in and using it as a kind of test product,” he told the Today programme, on BBC Radio Four.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ), one of the world’s largest unions for journalists, said Apple “must act swiftly” and remove Apple Intelligence to avoid misinforming the public – echoing prior calls by journalism body Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

“At a time where access to accurate reporting has never been more important, the public must not be placed in a position of second-guessing the accuracy of news they receive,” said Laura Davison, NUJ general secretary.

The RSF also said Apple’s intervention was insufficient, and has repeated its demand that the product is taken off-line.

The BBC complained last month after an AI-generated summary of its headline falsely told some readers that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself.

On Friday, Apple’s AI inaccurately summarised BBC app notifications to claim that Luke Littler had won the PDC World Darts Championship hours before it began – and that the Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal had come out as gay.

This marks the first time Apple has formally responded to the concerns voiced by the BBC about the errors, which appear as if they are coming from within the organisation’s app.

“These AI summarisations by Apple do not reflect – and in some cases completely contradict – the original BBC content,” the BBC said on Monday.

“It is critical that Apple urgently addresses these issues as the accuracy of our news is essential in maintaining trust.”

• What is AI and how does it work?
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The BBC is not the only news organisation affected.

In November, a ProPublica journalist highlighted erroneous Apple AI summaries of alerts from the New York Times app suggesting it had reported that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested.

A further, inaccurate summary of a New York Times story appears to have been published on January 6, relating to the fourth anniversary of the Capitol riots.

The New York Times has declined to comment.

RSF said the false, AI-generated headline about Mr Mangione in December showed “generative AI services are still too immature to produce reliable information for the public”.

On Tuesday, it said Apple’s plan to update the feature to clarify when notifications are summarised with AI to users “doesn’t fix the problem at all”.

“It just transfers the responsibility to users, who – in an already confusing information landscape – will be expected to check if information is true or not,” said Vincent Berthier, head of RSF’s technology and journalism desk.

Apple said its update would arrive “in the coming weeks”.

It has previously said its notification summaries – which group together and rewrite previews of multiple recent app notifications into a single alert on users’ lock screens – aim to allow users to “scan for key details”.

“Apple Intelligence features are in beta and we are continuously making improvements with the help of user feedback,” the company said in a statement on Monday, adding that receiving the summaries is optional.

“A software update in the coming weeks will further clarify when the text being displayed is summarization provided by Apple Intelligence. We encourage users to report a concern if they view an unexpected notification summary.”

The feature, along with others released as part of its broader suite of AI tools was rolled out in the UK in December. It is only available on its iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max handsets running iOS 18.1 and above, as well as on some iPads and Macs.

Apple is not alone in having rolled out generative AI tools that can create text, images and more content when prompted by users – but with varying results.

Google’s AI overviews feature, which provides a written summary of information from results at the top of its search engine in response to user queries, faced criticism last year for producing some erratic responses.

At the time a Google spokesperson said that these were “isolated examples” and that the feature was generally working well.

A Florida judge temporarily blocked the release of a Department of Justice special counsel report that would detail findings from Donald Trump’s classified documents case.

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

Both cases against Trump were shelved when he won re-election, but Mr Smith’s detailed report was due to be released.

On Tuesday, US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who oversaw the classified documents case and controversially dismissed it last July, temporarily barred Mr Smith or Garland from “releasing, sharing, or transmitting” the report.

Trump’s two co-defendants in the classified documents case — Walt Nauta, Trump’s personal aide, and Carlos De Oliveir, the property manager at the Mar-a-Lago club — had asked her to intervene. Both men had pleaded not guilty.

Judge Cannon ordered the release be put on hold until a higher appeals court, the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, considered an emergency appeal from Mr Nauta and Mr De Oliveir.

Trump praised Cannon as a “brilliant judge with great courage” at a press conference where he learned of her decision.

However, it was far from clear that Judge Cannon had the jurisdiction to block the release of the report, said Daniel Charles Richman, a professor at Columbia University Law School.

By law special counsels must present the findings of their investigations to the justice department, which is headed by the attorney general. Typically, attorneys general then share the reports with the public, and Attorney General Merrick Garland has in the past promised to do so.

In a letter to Garland, Trump’s lawyers have urged him to end the “weaponisation of the justice system” and not release this report.

They argue that 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. Judge Cannon ruled this summer that the special counsel was unconstitutional, a controversial decision that many legal scholars have criticised.

Mr Smith has not yet publicly responded to the letter.

Trump’s legal team received a draft copy of the report at the weekend. It was expected to be released as soon as Friday.

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.

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• 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, most of which were successfully delayed and thwarted by his lawyers and allies.

Only one of his four criminal cases went to trial, resulting in a unanimous guilty verdict on 34 charges of falsifying business records. Trump is currently battling to stave off his sentencing in that case, which is scheduled in New York on 10 January.

On Tuesday, a New York appeals court rejected Trump’s bid to delay the sentencing.

The administration of the Democratic president, Joe Biden, faced accusations from Trump’s opponents that they brought federal 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 and his team are expected to resign from the justice department before Trump takes office.

President-elect Donald Trump is showing no sign of letting up in his desire for the US to acquire Greenland and the Panama Canal, calling both critical to American national security.

Asked if he would rule out using military or economic force in order to take over the autonomous Danish territory or the Canal, he responded: “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two.

“But I can say this, we need them for economic security,” he told reporters during a wide-ranging news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Both Denmark and Panama have rejected any suggestion that they would give up territory.

Trump also vowed to use “economic force” when asked if he would attempt to annex Canada and called their shared border an “artificially drawn line”.

The boundary is the world’s longest between two countries and it was established in treaties dating back to the founding of the US in the late 1700s.

The president-elect said the US spends billions of dollars protecting Canada, and he criticised imports of Canadian cars, lumber and dairy products.

“They should be a state,” he told reporters.

But outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there isn’t “a snowball’s chance in hell” of the two countries merging.

The news conference was initially billed as an economic development announcement to unveil Dubai developer Damac Properties’ $20bn investment to build data centres in the US.

But the president-elect went on to criticise environmental regulations, the US election system, the various legal cases against him, and President Joe Biden.

Among a variety of other things, he suggested renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and restated his opposition to wind power, saying wind turbines are “driving the whales crazy”.

His remarks came as his son, Donald Trump Jr, was visiting Greenland.

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.

• Trudeau says ‘not a snowball’s chance in hell’ Canada will join US
• Trump’s eyeing Greenland – but other Arctic investment is frozen

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 close co-operation with the US, a Nato ally.

Greenland lies on the shortest route from North America to Europe and is home to a large American space facility. It also has some of the largest deposits of rare earth minerals, which are crucial in the manufacture of batteries and high-tech devices.

Trump suggested the island is crucial to military efforts to track Chinese and Russian ships, which he said are “all over the place”.

“I’m talking about protecting the free world,” he told reporters.

Since winning re-election Trump has repeatedly returned to the idea of US territorial expansion – including taking back the Panama Canal.

During the news conference, Trump said the canal “is vital to our country” and claimed “it’s being operated by China”.

He previously accused Panama of overcharging US ships to use the waterway, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino has rejected Trump’s claims and said there is “absolutely no Chinese interference” in the canal.

A Hong Kong-based company, CK Hutchison Holdings, manages two ports at the canal’s entrances.

The canal was built in the early 1900s and the US maintained control over the canal zone until 1977, when treaties negotiated under President Jimmy Carter gradually ceded the land back to Panama.

“Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake,” Trump said. “Look, [Carter] was a good man… But that was a big mistake.”

It’s unclear how serious the president-elect is about adding to the territory of the US, particularly when it comes to Canada, a country of 41 million people and the second-largest nation by area in the world.

During the news conference, Trump also repeated a number of falsehoods and odd conspiracy theories, including suggesting that Hezbollah, the Islamist militant group, was involved in the US Capitol riot of 2021.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has hit back at Donald Trump’s threat to use “economic force” to absorb Canada into the US saying there isn’t “a snowball’s chance in hell” to join the two.

President-elect Trump has in recent weeks repeatedly needled Canada about it becoming the 51st US state.

“You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security,” Trump said at a press conference at his Florida Mar-a Lago home on Tuesday.

“Canada and the United States, that would really be something.”

Trump reiterated his threat to bring in a “substantial” tariff on Canadian goods unless the country took steps to increase security on the shared US border.

The ongoing tariff threat comes at a politically challenging time for Canada.

On Monday, an embattled Trudeau announced he was resigning, though he will stay on as prime minister until the governing Liberals elect a new leader, expected sometime by late March.

Canada’s parliament has been prorogued – or suspended – until 24 March to allow time for the leadership race.

Economists warn that if Trump follows through on imposing the tariffs after he is inaugurated on 20 January, it would significantly hurt Canada’s economy.

Almost C$3.6bn ($2.5bn) worth of goods and services crossed the border daily in 2023, according to Canadian government figures.

The Trudeau government has said it is considering imposing counter-tariffs if Trump follows through on the threat.

The prime minister also said on X on Tuesday that: “Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner.”

During his lengthy Mar-a-Lago press conference, Trump reiterated his concerns he has expressed about drugs crossing the borders of Mexico and Canada into the US.

Like Canada, Mexico faces a 25% tariff threat.

The amount of fentanyl seized at the US-Canada border is significantly lower than at the southern border, according to US data.

Canada has promised to implement a set of sweeping new security measures along the border, including strengthened surveillance and adding a joint “strike force” to target transnational organised crime.

Trump said on Tuesday he was not considering using military force to make Canada part of the United States, but raised concerns about its neighbour’s military spending.

“They have a very small military. They rely on our military. It’s all fine, but, you know, they got to pay for that. It’s very unfair,” he said.

Canada has been under pressure to increase its military spending as it continues to fall short of the target set out for Nato members.

Its defence budget currently stands at C$27bn ($19.8bn, £15.5bn), though the Trudeau government has promised that it will boost spending to almost C$50bn by 2030.

British Columbia Premier David Eby told a news conference on Tuesday that a number of Canadian provincial premiers will soon be travelling to Washington DC to lobby against the possible tariffs.

On Monday, Doug Ford, the leader of Canada’s most populous province Ontario, said Trudeau must spend his remaining weeks in office working with the provinces to address Trump’s threat.

“The premiers are leading the country right now,” he told BBC News in an interview.

• What happens next for Canada?
• When will Donald Trump take office as US president?

Ontario has a deep reliance on trade with the US. The province is at the heart of the highly integrated auto industry in Canada, and trade between Ontario and the US totalled more than C$493bn ($350bn) in 2023.

“My message is let’s work together, let’s build a stronger trade relationship – not weaken it,” Ford said.

The premier warned “we will retaliate hard” if the Trump administration follows through, and highlighted the close economic ties between the two nations, including on energy.

The US relies “on Ontario for their electricity. We keep the lights on to a million and a half homes and businesses in the US”, he said.

At a press conference early this week, Ford also pushed back on Trump’s 51st state comments.

“I’ll make him a counter-offer. How about if we buy Alaska and we throw in Minneapolis and Minnesota at the same time?” Ford said.

Immigration has long been a polarising issue in the West but Canada mostly avoided it – until now. With protests and campaign groups springing up in certain quarters, some argue that this – together with housing shortages and rising rents – contributed to Justin Trudeau’s resignation. But could Donald Trump’s arrival inflame it further?

At first glance, the single bedroom for rent in Brampton, Ontario looks like a bargain. True, there’s barely any floor space, but the asking price is only C$550 (£300) a month in a Toronto suburb where the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom flat is C$2,261. Inspect it more closely, however, and this is actually a small bathroom converted into sleeping quarters. A mattress is jammed up next to the sink, the toilet is nearby.

The ad, originally posted on Facebook Marketplace, has generated hundreds of comments online. “Disgusting,” wrote one Reddit user. “Hey 20-somethings, you’re looking at your future,” says another.

But there are other listings like it – one room for rent, also in Brampton, shows a bed squashed near a staircase in what appears to be a laundry area. Another rental in Scarborough, a district in Ontario, offers a double bed in the corner of a kitchen.

While Canada might have a lot of space, there aren’t enough homes and in the past three years, rents across the country have increased by almost 20%, according to property consultancy Urbanation.

In all, some 2.4 million Canadian families are crammed into homes that are too small, in urgent need of major repairs or are seriously unaffordable, a government watchdog report released in December has suggested.

This accommodation shortage has come to a head at the same time that inflation is hitting Canadians hard – and these issues have, in turn, moved another issue high up the agenda in the country: immigration.

For the first time a majority of Canadians, who have long been welcoming to newcomers, are questioning how their cities can manage.

Politics in other Western countries has long been wrapped up in polarised debates surrounding immigration but until recently Canada had mostly avoided that issue, perhaps because of its geography. Now, however, there appears to be a profound shift in attitude.

In 2022, 27% of Canadians said there were too many immigrants coming into the country, according to a survey by data and research firm Environics. By 2024, that number had increased to 58%.

Campaign groups have sprung up too and there have been marches protesting against immigration in Ottawa, Vancouver and Calgary, and elsewhere around the country.

“I would say it was very much taboo, like no one would really talk about it,” explains Peter Kratzar, a software engineer and the founder of Cost of Living Canada, a protest group that was formed in 2024. “[But] things have really unfrozen.”

Stories like that of the bathroom for rent in Brampton have fuelled this, he suggests: “People might say, like, this is all anecdotal evidence. But the evidence keeps popping up. You see it over and over again.”

“People became concerned about how the immigration system was being managed,” adds Keith Neuman, executive director at Environics. “And we believe it’s the first time the public really thought about the management of the system.”

• Who might replace Trudeau as Liberal Party leader?
• Why the Trudeau era has come to an end now
• What happens next for Canada?

Once the golden boy of Canadian politics, prime minister Justin Trudeau, resigned on 6 January during a crucial election year, amid this widespread discontent over immigration levels.

His approval levels before his resignation were just 22% – a far cry from the first year of his premiership, when 65% of voters said they approved of him.

Though immigration is not the main reason for his low approval levels nor his resignation – he cited “having to fight internal battles” – he was accused of acting too late when dealing with rising anxiety over inflation and housing that many blamed, in part, on immigration.

“While immigration may not have been the immediate cause of the resignation, it may have been the icing on the cake,” says Professor Jonathan Rose, head of the department of political studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

Under Trudeau’s administration, the Canadian government deliberately chose to radically boost the numbers of people coming to the country after the pandemic, believing that boosting quotas for foreign students and temporary workers, in addition to skilled immigrants, would jumpstart the economy.

The population, which was 35 million 10 years ago, now tops 40 million.

Immigration was responsible for the vast majority of that increase – figures from Canada’s national statistics agency show that in 2024, more than 90% of population growth came from immigration.

As well as overall migration levels, the number of refugees has risen too. In 2013, there were 10,365 refugee applicants in Canada – by 2023, that number had increased to 143,770.

Voter dissatisfaction with immigration was “more a symptom than a cause” of Trudeau’s downfall, argues Prof Rose. “It reflects his perceived inability to read the room in terms of public opinion.”

It’s unclear who might replace Trudeau from within his own Liberal Party but ahead of the forthcoming election, polls currently favour the Conservative Party, whose leader Pierre Poilievre advocates keeping the number of new arrivals below the number of new homes being built.

Since Donald Trump won the US presidential election in November, Poilievre “has been speaking much more about immigration”, claims Prof Rose – “so much that it has become primed in the minds of voters”.

Certainly Trump’s arrival for a second term is set to pour oil on an already inflamed issue in Canada, regardless of who the new prime minister is.

He won the US election in part on a pledge to carry out mass deportations of undocumented migrants – and since his victory, he has said that he will enlist the military and declare a national emergency to follow through on his promise.

He also announced plans to employ 25% tariffs on Canadian goods unless border security is tightened.

Canada and the US share the world’s longest undefended border. Stretching almost 9,000km (5,592 miles), much of it crosses heavily forested wilderness and is demarcated by “The Slash,” a six-metre wide land clearing.

Unlike America’s southern border, there are no walls. This has long been a point of pride between Ottawa and Washington – a sign of their close ties.

After Trump first entered office in 2017, the number of asylum claims skyrocketed, with thousands walking across the border to Canada. The number of claims went from just under 24,000 in 2016 to 55,000 a year by 2018, according to the Canadian government. Almost all crossed from New York state into the Canadian province of Quebec.

In 2023, Canada and the US agreed to a tightened border deal that stopped most migrants from crossing the land border from one country to another. Under the agreement, migrants that come into contact with the authorities within 14 days of crossing any part of the border into either the US or Canada must return to whichever country they entered first — in order to declare asylum there.

The deal, reworked by Trudeau and Joe Biden, is based on the idea that both the US and Canada are safe countries for asylum seekers.

This time around, Canada’s national police force – the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) – says it began preparing a contingency plan for increased migrant crossings at the border well ahead of Trump being sworn in.

This includes a raft of new technology, from drones and night vision goggles, to surveillance cameras hidden in the forest.

“Worst-case scenario would be people crossing in large numbers everywhere on the territory,” RCMP spokesperson Charles Poirier warned in November. “Let’s say we had 100 people per day entering across the border, then it’s going to be hard because our officers will basically have to cover huge distances in order to arrest everyone.”

Now, the national government has committed a further C$1.3bn (£555m) to its border security plan.

Not everyone blames the housing crisis on the recent rise in immigration. It was “30 years in the making” because politicians have failed to build affordable units, argues Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow.

Certainly the country has a long history of welcoming newcomers. “Close to 50% of the population of Canada is first or second generation,” explains Mr Neuman. “That means either they came from another country, or one or both of their parents came from another country. In Toronto, Vancouver, that’s over 80%.”

This makes Canada “a very different place than a place that has a homogeneous population,” he argues.

He has been involved in a survey examining attitudes towards newcomers for 40 years. “If you ask Canadians: what’s the most important or distinctive thing about Canada, or what makes the country unique? The number one response is ‘multiculturalism’ or ‘diversity’,” he says.

Nonetheless, he says the shift in public opinion – and the rise in concerns about immigration – has been “dramatic”.

“Now there is not only broader public concern, but much more open discussion,” he says. “There are more questions being asked about how is the system working? How come it isn’t working?”

At one of the protests in Toronto, a crowd turned out with hand-painted signs, some proclaiming: “We want our future back!” and “End Mass Immigration”.

“We do need to put a moratorium on immigration,” argues Mr Kratzar, whose group has taken part in some of them. “We need to delay that so wages can catch up on the cost of rents.”

Accusations against newcomers are spreading on social media too. Last summer, Natasha White, who describes herself as a resident of Wasaga Beach in Ontario, claimed on TikTok that some newcomers had been digging holes on the beach and defecating in them.

The post generated hundreds of thousands of views and a torrent of anti-foreigner hatred, with many arguing that newcomers should “go home”.

People I interviewed who work closely with asylum seekers in Canada say that the heightened concerns around the need for more border security is making asylum seekers feel unsettled and afraid.

Abdulla Daoud, executive director at the Refugee Center in Montreal, believes that the vulnerable asylum seekers he works with feel singled out by the focus on migrant numbers since the US election. “They’re definitely more anxious,” he says. “I think they’re coming in and they’re feeling, ‘Okay, am I going to be welcomed here? Am I in the right place or not?'”

Those hoping to stay in Canada as refugees can’t access official immigration settlement services until it has been decided they truly need asylum. This process once took two weeks but it can now take as long as three years.

Tent cities to house newly-arrived refugees and food banks with empty shelves have sprung up in Toronto. The city’s homeless shelters are often reported to be full. Last winter, two refugee applicants froze to death after sleeping on Toronto’s streets.

Toronto mayor Olivia Chow, an immigrant herself having moved to Canada from Hong Kong at age 13, says: “People are seeing that, even with working two jobs or three jobs, they can’t have enough money to pay the rent and feed the kids.

“I understand the hardship of having a life that is not affordable, and the fear of being evicted, absolutely, I get it. But to blame that on the immigration system is unfair.”

With frustrations growing, Trudeau announced a major change in October: a 20% reduction in immigration targets over three years. “As we emerged from the pandemic, between addressing labour needs and maintaining population growth, we didn’t get the balance quite right,” he conceded.

He added that he wanted to give all levels of government time to catch up – to accommodate more people. But, given that he has since resigned, is it enough? And does the Trump presidency and the increasing anti-immigrant sentiment on that side of the border risk spilling further into Canada?

Mr Daoud has his own view. “Unfortunately, I think the Trump presidency had its impact on Canadian politics,” he says. “I think a lot of politicians are using this as a way to fear-monger.”

Others are less convinced that it will have much of an impact. “Canadians are better than that,” says Olivia Chow. “We remember that successive waves of refugees helped create Toronto and Canada.”

Politicians wading into the debate around population growth ahead of the next election will be conscious of the fact that half of Canadians are first and second-generation immigrants themselves. “If the Conservatives win the next election, we can expect a reduction in immigration,” says Prof Jonathan Rose. But he adds that Poilievre will have to walk “a bit of fine line”.

Prof Rose says: “Since immigrant-heavy ridings [constituencies] in Toronto and Vancouver will be important to any electoral victory, he can’t be seen as anti-immigration, merely recalibrating it to suit economic and housing policy.”

And there are a large number of Canadians, including business leaders and academics, who believe that the country must continue to pursue an assertive growth policy to combat Canada’s falling birth rate.

“I really have high hopes for Canadians,” adds Lisa Lalande of the Century Initiative, which advocates for policies that would see Canada’s population increase to 100 million by 2100. “I actually think we will rise above where we are now.

“I think we’re just really concerned about affordability [and] cost of living – not about immigrants themselves. We recognise they’re too important to our culture.”

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.”

A former senior UK Special Forces officer has told a public inquiry into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan that the SAS had a “golden pass allowing them to get away with murder”.

The accusation was published by the Afghanistan Inquiry on Wednesday as part of a release of material summarising seven closed hearings with members of UK Special Forces.

The officer, a former operations chief of staff for the Special Boat Service (SBS) – the UK’s naval special forces – was one of several senior officers who registered concerns back in 2011 that the SAS appeared to be carrying out executions and covering them up.

In one email from the time, the officer wrote that the SAS and murder were “regular bedfellows” and described the regiment’s official descriptions of operational killings as “quite incredible”.

Asked by the inquiry during the closed hearings whether he stood by his assertion that the SAS’s actions amounted to murder, the officer replied: “Indeed.”

Pressed by the inquiry counsel about his decision not to report his concerns further up the chain of command in 2011, he said he regretted his lack of action at the time. He agreed that there had been a “massive failure of leadership” by UK Special Forces.

The former SBS operations chief of staff was one of several senior officers from the Royal Navy’s special forces regiment who gave evidence to the inquiry behind closed doors in 2024.

The inquiry, which is examining night raids by UKSF between 2010 and 2013, follows years of reporting by BBC Panorama into allegations of murder and cover up by the SAS.

• SAS war crimes inquiry obtains huge cache of new evidence, BBC reveals
• How a British special forces raid went wrong, and a young family paid the price
• SAS unit repeatedly killed Afghan detainees, BBC finds

Only the inquiry team and representatives from the Ministry of Defence have been allowed to attend the closed hearings. The public, members of the media, and lawyers for the bereaved families are not allowed to be present.

The material released on Wednesday summarises the testimony from these hearings. Taken together, the documents – totalling hundreds of pages – paint a picture of the SAS’s arrival in Afghanistan in 2009 and the way in which it took over hunting the Taliban from the SBS.

Senior SBS officers told the inquiry of deep concerns that the SAS, fresh from aggressive, high-tempo operations in Iraq, was being driven by kill counts – the number of dead they could achieve in each operation.

Another senior SBS officer who gave evidence was asked whether he stood by his concerns in 2011 that the SAS was carrying out extra-judicial killings.

“I thought and think that on at least some operations [the SAS] was carrying out murders,” he said.

A junior SBS officer who also gave evidence to the inquiry behind closed doors described a conversation in which a member of the SAS who had recently returned from Afghanistan told him about a pillow being put over the head of someone before they were killed with a pistol.

“I suppose what shocked me most wasn’t the execution of potential members of the Taliban, which was of course wrong and illegal, but it was more the age and the methods and, you know, the details of things like pillows,” the junior officer said.

He clarified that some of those killed by the SAS had been children, according to the conversation he relayed. Asked by the inquiry counsel if he meant some of those killed would be as young as 16, he replied: “Or younger 100%”.

The junior officer told the inquiry that he feared for his safety should his name be linked to testimony that the SAS had been allegedly murdering civilians.

These SBS officers were part of a small group that was privately raising doubts back in 2011 about the veracity of SAS operational reports coming back from Afghanistan.

In one email, one of the senior officers, who held a post at the SBS headquarters in Poole at the time, wrote to a senior colleague: “If we don’t believe this, then no one else will and when the next WikiLeaks occurs then we will be dragged down with them.”

The two senior officers were in a position to interpret the language in the regiment’s reports, having served with SBS operational units in Afghanistan prior to the arrival of the SAS, when the naval unit was forced to take what it saw as a back seat, pursuing anti-narcotics operations rather than hunting the Taliban.

As well as believing that the SAS may have committed murders, they described in their emails what they viewed as a cover-up in Afghanistan. The second officer told the inquiry chair: “Basically, there appears to be a culture there of ‘shut up, don’t question’.”

At the time, support staff in Afghanistan were sceptical about the SAS’s accounts of their operations, judging them not credible.

But rather than taking the concerns seriously, a reprimand had been issued “to ensure that the staff officers support the guys on the ground”, another senior SBS officer wrote.

He told the inquiry that in the eyes of the Special Forces’ commanding officer in Afghanistan, the SAS could do no wrong, and described the lack of accountability for the regiment as “astonishing”.

The documents released on Wednesday also reveal new details about an explosive meeting in Afghanistan in February 2011, during which the Afghan special forces that partnered the SAS angrily withdrew their support.

The meeting followed a growing rift between the SAS and the Afghan special forces over what the Afghans saw as unlawful killings by members of the SAS.

One Afghan officer present at the meeting was so incensed that he reportedly reached for his pistol.

Describing the meeting in a newly released email, the SBS officer wrote: “I’ve never had such a hostile meeting before – genuine shouting, arm waving and with me staring down a 9mm barrel at one stage – all pretty unpleasant.”

After intervention from senior members of UKSF, the Afghan units agreed to continue to working alongside the SAS. But it would not be the last time they withdrew their support in protest.

“This is all very damaging,” the SBS officer concluded his email.

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Few European leaders have felt the lash of Elon Musk’s social media outbursts more than Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The tech-billionaire owner of X has called him an “incompetent fool” and urged him to resign. On Thursday Musk will use his platform to host Alice Weidel, the head of Germany’s far-right, anti-immigrant AfD for a lengthy chat.

For many German politicians it smacks of political interference, with the AfD running second in the polls ahead of federal elections on 23 February.

“You have to stay cool,” says Scholz. “Don’t feed the troll.”

Although some of Europe’s leaders, notably Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, have found favour with Musk, others are finding it hard to ignore him, as he ventures into their domestic politics ahead of a new role of adviser to the incoming US President Donald Trump.

In the space of 24 hours, four European governments have objected to Musk’s posts.

France’s Emmanuel Macron was among the first to expressed incredulity on Monday.

“Ten years ago, who would have believed it, if we had been told that the owner of one of the biggest social networks in the world would support a new, international reactionary movement and intervene directly in elections, including in Germany?” he said.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store weighed in, too, saying he found it “worrying that a man with considerable access to social networks and significant economic resources is so directly involved in the internal affairs of other countries”.

Spain’s government spokeswoman, Pilar Alegría, said digital platforms such as X should act with “absolute neutrality and above all without any kind of interference”.

Musk has highlighted crime statistics in Norway and Spain, and blamed a deadly Christmas market attack in Germany on “mass unchecked immigration”.

In the past few days, Musk has written numerous posts attacking the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his administration over grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation.

“Those who are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible are not interested in victims, they’re interested in themselves,” said the UK prime minister, without mentioning Musk personally.

Two notable exceptions in Europe are Italy and Hungary.

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has cultivated close ties with Elon Musk and calls him a “genius” and an “extraordinary innovator”.

And Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who met Musk while visiting Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month, shares Musk’s dislike of Hungarian-born liberal philanthropist George Soros.

But it is the tech-billionaire’s intervention in German politics that is most contentious, because of imminent elections.

He has spoken out several times in favour of the AfD in recent weeks, and wrote a highly controversial article for Welt am Sonntag in which he called the AfD the “last spark of hope” for Germany.

Musk justified his intervention at the time because of his company Tesla’s financial investment in Germany. He said portraying the AfD as right-wing, extremist was “clearly false”, because Alice Weidel had a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka.

German security services have labelled the AfD either as right-wing extremist or suspected extremist and the courts have ruled it pursues goals against democracy.

While Olaf Scholz has sought to stay calm, the Greens’ candidate for chancellor, Robert Habeck, was more blunt: “Hands off our democracy, Mr Musk.”

Liberal FDP leader Christian Lindner has suggested that Musk’s aim might perhaps be to weaken Germany in the US interest, “by recommending voting for a party that would harm us economically and isolate us politically”.

The former head of the European Commission’s digital agenda, Thierry Breton, took to X last weekend to warn Alice Weidel, the AfD’s candidate for chancellor, that Thursday’s live chat with Musk would give her “a significant and valuable advantage over your competitors”.

The European Commission has said there is nothing in the EU’s Digital Services rules that bans a live stream, or anyone expressing personal views.

However, a spokesman warned that platform owners should not provide “preferential treatment”. Musk’s X is already under investigation and the EU says the live stream will come under that inquiry.

While Musk has been outspoken on German politics, he has also been extending his business interests in Italy.

Giorgia Meloni had just been on a whirlwind trip to have dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago when reports emerged that Italy was in talks with Musk’s SpaceX to sign a $1.6bn (£1.3bn) deal, under which Starlink satellites would provide encrypted internet and telecommunications services for the Italian government.

The deal does not yet appear to have been concluded and Rome has swiftly denied any contracts have been signed.

Musk said on Monday that he was “ready to provide Italy [with] the most secure and advanced connectivity” – without confirming a deal had been reached.

But the suggestion that Starlink could be entrusted with safeguarding the Italian government’s communications was enough to cause alarm among some opposition politicians in Rome.

“Handing over such a delicate service to Musk while he is sponsoring the European far right, spreading fake news and meddling in the internal politics of European countries cannot be an option,” said centrist leader Carlo Calenda.

Rescuers searched into the night for survivors after a major earthquake killed at least 126 people and damaged more than 3,000 buildings in a remote part of the Chinese region of Tibet, near Everest.

Another 188 people were 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 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 km (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 brought down 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 before night fell, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

Sangji Dangzhi – whose supermarket was damaged in the earthquake – said the destruction of 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.

State media said that, as of 19:00 local time, some 3,609 buildings had collapsed – potentially leaving thousands of people without shelter.

A hotel resident in Shigatse told Chinese media outlet Fengmian News he had been jolted awake by a wave of shaking. He said he had grabbed his socks and rushed out on to 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 – which cannot be freely travelled to by journalists – 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.

Jiang Haikun, a researcher at the China Earthquake Networks Center, told CCTV that while another earthquake of around magnitude 5 might 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 the area, 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 sent drones to the affected area.

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.”

A prominent Nigerian atheist, who has just been freed after serving more than four years in prison for blasphemy, is now living in a safe house as his legal team fear his life may be in danger.

Mubarak Bala, 40, was convicted in a court in the northern city of Kano after, in a surprise move, he pleaded guilty to 18 charges relating to a controversial Facebook post shared in 2020.

“The concern about my safety is always there,” he told the BBC in an exclusive interview as he tucked into his first meal as a free man.

Nigeria is a deeply religious society and those who may be seen as having insulted a religion – whether Islam or Christianity – face being shunned and discriminated against.

Blasphemy is an offence under Islamic law – Sharia – which operates alongside secular law in 12 states in the north. It is also an offence under Nigeria’s criminal law.

Bala, who renounced Islam in 2014, said there were times during his incarceration that he felt he “may not get out alive”. He feared he could have been targeted by guards or fellow inmates in the first prison he was in, in Kano, which is a mainly Muslim city.

“Freedom is here, but also there is an underlying threat I now have to face,” he said. “All those years, those threats, maybe they’re out there.”

• WATCH: The cost of being an atheist

He could have been inside for much longer if it was not for an appeals court judge who reduced the initial 24-year sentence last year, describing it as “excessive”.

Walking out of the prison in the capital, Abuja, Bala looked tired, but cheerful dressed in a white T-shirt, khaki shorts and flip-flops. He emerged with his beaming lawyer by his side.

“Everything is new to me. Everything is new,” he said as he took in his new-found liberty.

Bala, an outspoken religious critic, was arrested after a group of lawyers filed a complaint with the police about the social media post.

He then spent two years in prison awaiting trial before being convicted in 2022.

At the time Bala’s guilty plea baffled many, even his legal team, but he stands by his decision, saying that it relieved the pressure on those who stood by him, including his lawyers, friends and family.

“I believe what I did saved not only my life, but people in Kano,” he said.

“Especially those that were attached to my case, because they are also a target.”

His conviction was widely condemned by international rights groups and sparked a debate about freedom of speech in Nigeria.

His detention also sent shockwaves across Nigeria’s small atheist and humanist communities, and his release has come as a relief to many, but there are still concerns.

“It’s thanks and no thanks,” said Leo Igwe, the founder of the Humanist Association of Nigeria.

“Thanks, that he’s out, thanks that he’s a free man. But no thanks, because there is a dent on him as if he committed a crime. For us at the Humanist Association, he committed no crime.”

As for Bala, he is keen to catch up on lost time – including getting to know his young son who was just six weeks old when he was imprisoned. But he said he had no regrets.

“My activism, my posting on social media, I always knew the worst would happen, When I made the decision to come out, I knew I could be killed. I knew the dangers, and I still decided to do it.”

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